Holding Out For A Hero
by cmdrtekk
Summary: WW G1 Mix: A glimpse at Prowl’s history as a sparkling, why he has such a sophisticated battle computer & processor & how he came to be raised by Jazz, Mirage & the mechs of the Autobot Special Operations Division. Includes scenes from his entire life als
1. Chapter 1

**Title:** Holding Out For A Hero  
**Rating:** T or NC-17  
**Characters/Pairings:** Jazz, Mirage, Sparkling Prowl, Ratchet, various others - some canon some not.  
**Warnings:** some sparkling torture and battle scenes  
**Universe:** WW or G1  
**Disclaimer:** _I, in no way, shape, or form, own the Transformers© franchise or the characters it contains. They belong to Has/Tak, No infringement intended. Nor do I have any claim to the songs used._

**Summary: **WW or G1: A small glimpse at Prowl's history as a sparkling, why he has such a sophisticated battle computer and processor and how he came to be raised by Jazz and the Special Operation Mechs in the Autobot army. Expansion of the 4th drabble from Chapter 3 of Music in Real 'Life' Color. People on LJ requested, seconded, thirded, fourthed, begged, pleaded and even groveled for a continuance of the story. So here it is. Hopefully it will satisfy?

Originally I was picturing Prowl with wings in a G1 style, but when Jazz described them to Flex they are apparently more of a War Within style.

And yes if it feels to you like Mirage joined up before the Towers fell, I get that feeling as well with this one.

**EDIT:** As of April 20th, Veriraziel claims Prowl's sparkling glitch and its resolution as her idea. So credit is offered.

* * *

When on Cybertron, the units of time and distance are measured in Cybertronian units, as detailed below... it's a mix of IDW, DW and BW

Astrosecond : 0.498 Earth seconds  
Nano-klik : 1 Earth second  
Klik : 1.2 Earth minutes  
Breem : 8.3 Earth minutes  
Joor : About 6.5 Earth hours (hour)  
Cycle: About 93 hours (day)  
Orn : About 13 Earth days (week)  
Deca-cycle : Approx. 3 weeks  
Stellar-cycle : 7.5 months  
Meta-cycle : 13 months  
Vorn : About 83 Earth years (year)

Hic : 1 kilometer  
Vun : 1 hectometer  
Mechanometer : 1 meter  
Megamile : 1 mile

* * *

The Sparkling shivered in his frame unable to move. He was rarely able to move anymore and when he was allowed, his whole body hurt, not just his head. Fear and pain were his always present companions. He tried to hide the fear, but he was just a sparkling. During the increasingly rare times he was freed and handled by the huge purple mech, then left alone, he would try to remember the time when being touched had been a good thing. He would try to remember that at one time he had been cared for and protected. That had all ended with the explosion. When he had on-lined again he had been confused, cold, hurt, and hungry. The large purple bot that had come to him then had offered no comfort and no food. Had in fact picked him up by his sensitive wings causing more pain while staring at him with his single yellow optic. "You'll do." Was all that had been said before he'd been dropped back into the crate he'd woken in.

**+-+-+-**

Jazz stepped into the room and stopped in shock and surprise. The stop so sudden and unexpected that Mirage, following him in raised a hand to his back to ward off the collision.

"Jazz, what…" but Mirage trailed off as he sidestepped just enough for a full view of the room.

The job here in the Con base was to locate and destroy Shockwave's latest weapon. A super tactical computer. Various undercover operatives had been reporting the development of the top secret project for nearly a vorn now. The only thing known about it was that it had been in development. It had been completed and put to use three meta-cycles ago. That it had been activated three meta-cycles ago had not been information Special Operations had needed to provide. It had been very obvious that the computer was active when the Autobots found their afts being handed to them in 93 percent of the major engagements since then. They were barely holding on at this rate. Autobot tacticians across the planet on the battle fronts were screaming for the thing to be shut down. If it wasn't, then the Autobots would be extinct in meta-cycles.

"Slag." Whispered Jazz

"And frag" Mirage responded not taking his optics from the site in front of him.

For there in front of them, strapped and plugged into the bank of computers was a sparkling. Its blue optics flickering, indicating some sort of data transfer was in progress.

The two stepped over to the far wall where the sparkling was attached to look the situation over.

"This is the computer?" Mirage said with disgust. "Jazz, we can't destroy this."

"Not yet we can't. Come on, we need to figure out how to get him out of there, because this is the only chance were gonna get. Then we'll blow the rest."

Jazz looked carefully at the connections. As soon as he and Mirage started pulling them, alarms would probably be triggered somewhere, cutting into what precious time they had. But leaving the sparkling to die with the mess that he and Mirage were planning on making of this room specifically and the base in general was not an option.

"Mirage, start freeing him, I'll set the charges, then help you. We're running out of time."

It took time. Precious time. A full breem longer than it had taken Jazz to set his explosives; to carefully release the metal straps and clamps and unplug the interface cords from the sparkling.

"Ok I think that's it. Jazz stated as he freed the last clamp on his side and reached to the lift the sparkling out.

The sparkling's optics had come on fully the moment Mirage had begun to free him from the tangle. Those optics had stayed focused on him the entire time he worked until Jazz had come to help. Then they had stayed entirely focused on Jazz. Jazz had found anger and frustration growing in him as the tiny fear filled blue optics locked on him. The sparkling had made no sound however so Jazz startled when as he tried to lift the sparkling out it suddenly cried out.

"Ah slag! Shhh little one. Mirage I missed one. Gotta clamp here in his wing."

Mirage reached around Jazz and released the clamp from where it dug into the wing and Jazz pulled the sparkling close offering soft clicks and chirrs in apology and comfort to ease the sparkling. Even before Jazz had cupped the tiny thing in his hands the sparkling had curled itself into as tight a ball as it was able, shaking and clicking in fear, pain and overall general distress.

"Hold him close and boost your energy field."

"What?"

"Sparkling's gain comfort from the feel of a creator's energy field. He's not synced to either of us, but boosting the field should still help. And hopefully he'll stay quite as we get out of here."

Jazz did as suggested and boosted his field sending a caring caress through it. "How do you know this Raj?"

"The upper classes of the Towers raise their sparklings themselves. You pick up a thing or too even if there are no sparklings in your own unit."

Mirage watched as Jazz tried to settle the sparkling who unsurprisingly continued to huddle in a ball and click quietly offering no indication that it recognized the attempts at comfort it was receiving. "Jazz?"

"Yeah, yeah, I know. Here, you take him."

"Me?"

"No matter what, I want him outta here. You're the one that can disappear. If we need to separate, you get him and the image captures of this thing back to Iacon. Now let's go before we become part of our own explosions."

/\/\

"What the Slag is that?

"What does it look like?"

Six joors since blowing up Shockwave's base found Jazz and Mirage standing exhausted just inside the door of the one room Ops cache; the sparkling nestled against Mirage's chest in recharge. They were facing the third ops member stationed out of this cache, a senior operative named Flex.

"I know it's a sparkling. And a Con Seeker one at that judging by the wings and the very prominent faction symbols on those wings. Just what the pit are you doing bring it here to the cache?"

Jazz responded, his tone hot, but controlled. "First, it ain't a Con, it's a sparkling. Second, those wings are not flight wings, their too sharp and narrow; I doubt they will ever develop into flight wings so he ain't a Seeker, though Primus knows we could sure use one. No, he's a ground mech. Third, we've completely checked him over for tracking devices. He's clean. And fourth, Raj and I are pretty sure he's the main component of what use to be Shockwave's super tactical computer."

"What?" And there was no mistaking the surprised disbelief in Flex's voice.

"Come on," Jazz began tiredly as he and Mirage moved further into the room over towards the energon supplies. "Let us get some energon and we'll show you the image captures and tell ya all about it while we drink."

A quarter of a joor later found Flex looking thoughtfully at the sparkling where it continued to recharge on top of a storage crate with a thermal blanket wrapped around it. "You two get a joor of recharge, then I'm sending both of you to Base Cadar with this little guy.

Jazz sat up in his chair. "Why Cadar? Sopac is closer by nearly two joors. That makes for a quicker round trip. We'd be back in eight at the most."

"Windcharger's unit took over at Cadar recently and he's got a full medic with him. Sopac only has a Med Tech. You two did a good enough field job patching this one wing where the clamp gouged it, but he still needs to be looked over by a medic. The sooner the better. But that aside, I doubt either one of you realize that sparklings require a special type of energon. This little one is going to get hungry at some point."

"Far sooner than we can make it to Cadar." Mirage mumbled lowly.

Flex still heard him though. "Aiy, you're probably right. It'll probably be before you get out of here even."

Jazz wasn't done questioning the choice of evacuation point though. "Okay, but why would a medic stationed at a forward base have sparkling energon? It'd be far faster to go to Sopac. We let them know were comin' with special cargo. They can have a shuttle or a flyer waiting for immediate evac of the sparkling to Iacon."

"While I agree that Windcharger's medic probably does not have sparkling energon, he will have the ability to make some or dilute regular energon in a manner safe enough to fill this one's tank up. I'm not sure a Med Tech will be able to do that. Plus, based on Decepticon movements, the Sopac area may be seeing some action here soon and I'd rather not send you through any of those preparations. We don't need the sparking falling back into Decepticon clutches, since I'm sure that the Con's will suspect we took him rather than blow him up with the base." Flex paused then added sarcastically with a smirk, "that would be are sympathetic Autobot tendencies ya know." He paused again before continuing in a more normal tone, "No this one's journey to Iacon will have to begin from Cadar Base. Now, get that recharge."

A little over a joor later Flex watched as Jazz and Mirage slipped out of the cache with the sparkling huddled once again in a ball in Jazz's arms. As expected the sparkling had woken from recharge scarred and fearful, and hungry. Flex had attempted to feed the sparkling a dropperful of energon; not wanting to risk the sparkling's tank or health with a larger amount. The endeavor had been unsuccessful until Jazz had come and taken the sparkling up in his arms where it had huddled, still fearful. The saboteur had managed to coax the sparkling to take the miniscule amount of energon, but whether it was from a sense of trust or just hunger forcing the issue Flex couldn't say.

Now as Flex watched the group depart he didn't expect to see either of the younger ops officers again anytime soon. The message he'd received from Iacon in response to his own message while everyone had been in recharge had pretty much said not to expect his team members back; if you read between the lines. The two didn't realize or understand yet, but by the time they reached the Cadar Base, that sparkling would probably be theirs, its system and energy field synced to at least one of them if not both. There were enough joors of travel involved in getting to the forward base from the cache for that to happen. And few in the Autobot Army would want to traumatize further an already traumatized sparkling by yanking away what little security it had found just as soon as it had found it. He chuckled then, yes, the younger ops officers would find themselves stationed in Iacon for the immediate future he was sure, which would probably put both in a slagging foul mood for a few cycles once they learned of the transfer.

/\/\

The head of Special operations himself was waiting to greet Jazz and Mirage when they finally arrived in Iacon with the Sparkling.

"Welcome back to Iacon. It's been a while."

"Yes sir." Was the chorused response.

"Come on, I have orders to escort you three to Medical, so the new CMO can run a full diagnostic on him."

"New CMO? What happened to Dactyl?" Mirage questioned as he and Jazz fell in alongside their Commander.

"He… retired."

"Retired?"

"Yup. Quite the sight actually. In what may have been his most impressive display of ranting and cussing to date I have ever had the non-privilege of witnessing he chewed out the Prime in the middle of a Senior Staff meeting and finished it off with a simple, and I quote, I quit. He was out the door and on a scientific shuttle off Cybertron a quarter of a joor later.

"Well I can't say that'll I miss him."

"Uh huh. Wait till you meet the new one, then give me your opinion."

"As long as the new guy turns off pain receptors before doing work he can cuss and rant all he wants."

The Commander offered a non-committal sound as they continued in silence to the medical section of the complex. Then as they neared Main Medical the beginnings of what was distinguishable as yelling could be heard. And as they neared the doors to Medical itself it was obvious it was coming from within. Jazz looked down at the sparkling concerned, remembering how it had panicked in the rec room at Cadar Base when a couple of warriors had gotten into a brief argument. Thankfully the sparkling continued its recharge apparently unaware.

Just before reaching the entrance, the doors slid open and a bright blue and green mech raced out, ducking as he rebounded off the wall across from the doors before sidestepping the Special Op's officers and racing off down the corridor.

"What in the pit…" Began Mirage before quickly be shushed by the Commander.

"Shhh. Or he'll hear you."

"Either come in or leave, but don't stand out there whispering." Was the snarled call from inside Medical.

Mirage and Jazz shared and incredulous look. Before following their Commander in.

An average size mech painted mostly white with a few splashes of red stood before them. "Ah Ratchet, I see you've scared the bay clear of fools yet again."

The mech addressed as Ratchet dimmed his optics slightly as he glared at the Special Operations Commander. "Watch yourself Commander. Your Ops miscreants are hardly any better than the average mech around here in avoiding stupidity. Now what do you want?"

"I believe you were advised that a couple of my miscreants were bringing in a special package for you to examine?" I'm delivering them and their package to you." At that the Commander turned and looked at Mirage and Jazz. "Contact me when you're done here, I'll have quarters for you then." And with that he slipped past his agents and out the door.

Jazz and Mirage shared a quick look then directed their attention at the medic. A couple of nano-clicks passed then Jazz spoke up. "Special Operations officers Lieutenants Jazz and Mirage reporting as ordered with the sparkling."

/\/\

The four cycles since arriving in Iacon had revealed a lot of information. And in Jazz's perspective, not all of it was good. And in the number one slot on the not-good-news list was his re-assignment to Iacon for the foreseeable future. Number two on the list was that he and Mirage had been designated the official caretakers of the sparkling. According to Ratchet, based on observations while running the diagnostics on the sparkling, said sparkling had attached itself to Jazz and Mirage. Jazz and Mirage had argued that observation strongly saying the sparkling gave no noticeable signs that it was attached to the two of them in any way, and they sure didn't feel any different. Ratchet had countered them by saying that it didn't take any special skills to see the attachment, just that a bot needed to look. The rest of High Command had nodded in agreement.

That two junior ops officers knew very little about raising a sparkling had not been a strong enough argument to change the decision of caretaker for the traumatized sparkling. In fact it had been countered that op's mechs would be ideal since the sparkling would probably need guardians in every sense of the word. The sparkling was after all a highly valuable war prize in the eyes of the Cons. And no one was foolish enough to think that the Cons didn't have spies and infiltrators in Iacon. Taking it to an Iacon youth center to be raised was completely out.

Jazz knew he should have suspected something was up immediately when he and Mirage were assigned quarters in the area of the residence section reserved for command officers. There was just no way two junior officers, special ops or not would ordinarily rate such luxurious private quarters. The two had expected to be housed as usual in transient troop quarters with any number of other op's mechs if they were lucky and with common soldiers if they were really unlucky. Yet they had found themselves here, in quarters outfitted with a general use room, a separate room with recharge berths and a third room that was a private wash area. They did not realize that the decision to have them remain as guardians for the sparkling had been made even before they had set foot in Iacon. The conclusion at the time was that the upgrade in quarters was because they were still in charge of the sparkling and would be kicked out as soon as they were relieved of the duty.

Jazz got up from the desk and moved to the recharge room to check on the sparkling. It recharged a lot. Ratchet had said the high amount of recharge was most likely a side effect of the modifications Shockwave had made to the sparkling. The modifications had a high energy drain. And while a fully developed mech would be able to compensate easily for the higher drain, the sparkling's only recourse was recharge; since a sparkling could only handle so much energon regardless if it was sparkling energon or not. The science team theorized and Ratchet agreed that the sparkling had been receiving supplemental energy through some of the hook-ups it had been connected to previously by Shockwave. Such a method was an unacceptable, unsafe risk to subject a sparkling to and one the Autobots would not practice.

Of the modifications identified in the sparkling, the biggest appeared to be the highly advanced and singularly dedicated battle computer the sparkling was outfitted with. Ratchet had reported that at this point in time it was too integrated with the sparklings systems to disconnect. So for now the hope was that eventually the sparklings systems would realize that running the battle computer all the time was unnecessary, especially without the rest of the equipment the sparkling had been plugged into offering it direction. The information would make no sense to a sparkling anyway. If his systems accepted that reality, the amount of re-charge should drop to more normal levels for a sparkling his assumed age.

Eventually the direction for the sparklings battle computer would come from the sparklings other huge modification; the highly advanced, extremely sophisticated logic and analytical centers, which the medical team agreed had most certainly been tinkered with to get them to the level they were and predicted the centers would eventually be one of the most impressive ever seen in a bot. Combine them with the on board battle computer and the sparkling was destined to be a tactical genius. According to both the medical and science teams, the reason for doing all this to a sparkling was most likely because its systems would adapt, where as a fully developed mechs systems would not be able to adapt to the level of technological upgrades the sparkling had been subjected to. At least not and allow the mech to remain sane and have full access to the hardware. How many sparklings had lost their lives before a compatible one was found and the tech was perfected for use in a sparkling would never be known.

Shockwave's mistake - or more likely Megatron's everyone agreed - had been in trying to rush the eventual tactical advantage for the Decepticons by hooking the sparkling to peripherals to access the battle computer before the sparkling could mature and do everything on its own, thus putting the sparkling into play and drawing the desperate attention of the Autobots. What was to stop Shockwave from attempting this again, Jazz wasn't sure. But the Science team had spouted off fancy words, scientific jargon about compatibility and mentioned high time and costs throughout the long explanation that essentially said they doubted Shockwave would go this route again, especially since it had proven vulnerable.

Now when Jazz looked in on the Sparkling he found it awake and sitting up. As usual it had made no sound. The simple guess was that the sparkling had learned quickly that being silent kept Shockwave's attention elsewhere and thus it avoided any maltreatment. That the Autobots meant it no harm could take deca-cycles or stellar cycles to learn. Perhaps even meta-cycles according to Ratchet. And even then it might be vorns beyond that before the sparkling accepted what it knew. Jazz scooped the tiny thing up cupping it in his hands as it automatically curled into a protective ball, its tiny wings curved as close to its body as possible, which wasn't much he noted. Jazz sighed as he exited with the black and white winged ball.

**+-+-+-**

Jazz and Mirage were sitting with a group of op's mechs in an op's controlled common room. There were a couple teams and several Lone Agents permanently based out of Iacon plus a couple of teams in transition to new posts present that night. No rookies here, only mechs who had been deployed in the field and successfully completed a minimum of five missions in level three two or one risk categories came to this room, which was why Jazz and Mirage often came here with the sparkling. It allowed them to relax with mechs who had known and shared the same dangers, performed the same often dark tasks, who thrived on the thrill and knew they were the absolute best the army had to offer right up to the moment they were caught and or killed.

Jazz and Mirage had received orders reassigning them to Headquarters as Op's instructors. While junior in rank as far as the Autobot Army was concerned, the two of them had several vorns of field experience with the majority of their missions in the level three, two and one high risk categories. No mech based out of a cache as close to Con controlled territory as they had been saw anything easier than a level three job, with two's the most common. To survive as long as they had in the field of this war gave them the right to this room just like every other mech present. And after dealing with rookies the majority of two cycles out of every three, the room was a much needed break. Plus, all the regular teams in Iacon knew how special the sparkling was. And though it mostly hid within the arms of its guardians whenever it was out of their quarters the fact was it had become much a cherished part of these rough necked soldiers lives during the vorn it had been living with them.

Flex was one of the operatives in base this cycle waiting on a new assignment. He had gone solo as a Lone Agent when Jazz and Mirage had been reassigned to the sparkling. And it was he who presented the question to his former teammates that surprised the Guardians. "So are you two ever going to name that thing, or is he destined to be Scraplit, It, Him, Runt, The Sparking, or Little Glitch for his entire life?" Flex nodded at the sparkling where it currently sat, uncurled in Jazz's lap observing everything.

"Huh? What?" was the chorused and non-enlightened response from the two.

Flex briefly dimmed his optics and shook his head as a smirk appeared on his lips. "You two have been his guardians for more than a vorn now, don't you think it's time he had a name?"

The comment was followed by several other razzing comments given in good nature at the sparklings guardians. Then someone called out, "and it needs to be a good Op's name."

To which another responded, "Why? We all know Tactical's gonna get him."

"All the more reason to give him an Op's name. So those stiffs in Tact never forget where he came from."

"Somehow I doubt they will ever be allowed to do that."

Jazz looked at Mirage, then at Flex. "Well I guess you do have a point. If anyone else was gonna name him I'm sure it would have been done by now. Raj?"

Mirage smiled, his optics glowing, "He's long overdue for a name."

Names were tossed out for suggestion, the merits of each discussed and argued over. In the end it was Jazz who tossed out the winning name. The group had just shot down the same Stalker and were racking their CPU's for a winning name when Jazz spoke up. "Ya know, he's really quiet. Even his systems run quiet. He's gonna be really stealthy when he eventually gets upgraded…" Jazz trailed off and someone took the moment to remind the group they had already nixed Stealth, Shadow, Wraith and all combinations of the three.

"Well what about Prowl?" Jazz finally tossed out the name for consideration. Looks and nods passed around and finally Flex spoke up. "Objections anyone? Going once, going twice, Prowl it is then." He snatched Prowl from Jazz's lap then and raised him high for all to see, "You are officially Prowl, and you belong to us. Welcome to Special Op's." He held Prowl high a moment longer as the rest of the mechs present dutifully chorused welcome to Special Op's and followed with cheers and clapping as Flex deposited the little one back in Jazz's lap.

Jazz smiled as he looked down at Prowl who had tolerated being handled by Flex without a click or wiggle of protest. It was a first for Prowl who always pitched a fit when handled by anyone other than his two guardians or with reluctant acceptance, the Medic Ratchet. Jazz tilted his head and looked at Mirage who nodded back with a smile. He had also noticed. Perhaps, more progress than just a name had been achieved this night.

**+-+-+-**

Two full vorns passed and the war continued, showing every sign of further escalation. In that time, safe within the halls and territory of the Iacon Autobase claimed by the Special Operation mechs, Prowl became the darling of Special Op's. No seasoned Op's mech was immune to the quiet that was Prowl. And while he still fussed and squealed, or huddled shaking in silence when handled by unfamiliar mechs or huddled quietly within the arms of his guardians when out in the general parts of the base, the black and white sparkling accepted and moved among the seasoned warriors within the Special Op's halls with a cautious ease.

Still Prowl had yet to show affection or true happiness. Neutral was probably the most positive word one could apply to Prowls emotions and behavior. He sought comfort when desired by going and sitting at the feet of a chosen mech until he was noticed and scooped up. And he accepted the attention lavishly laid on him by the Op's bots in general, but always with a quiet reserve, caution showing clearly in his optics, as though waiting for the pain to start and his world to collapse. And he had yet to speak a single word. Ratchet continued to say Prowl was developing well for his young age bracket of four to six vorns considering what he had been through during part of his first vorn or so of life and that he was currently being raised by the entire group of special op's miscreants. That he showed no signs of adding a few spoken words to the click and whistle language of sparklings was hardly a surprise and that what seemed to Jazz like very little progress was actually impressive indeed.

Then a startling and unexpected thing happened one cycle when Jazz was in one of the Iacon facilities training rooms with Prowl watching one of his rookie op's teams run a simulation. The sparkling froze. Various attempts to get Prowls attention failed to pull the sparkling out of the freeze and eventually the sparkling fell off line.

Jazz had raced for Medical in a panic. Ratchet had been waiting for them to arrive and after a wide-ranging examination of the off line sparkling, decided everything would be all right. He then warned the slightly less panicked Guardian that the incident was likely only the first of several during Prowls time as a sparkling. The reason was surprising, yet simple. It appeared the little one was actually attempting to access the highly advanced and sophisticated logic and analytical centers Shockwave had modified within his CPU and he was doing so vorns sooner than a normal sparkling of his age bracket would have been expected to access unmodified ones. While not damaging to Prowl, it would produce a glitch that resulted in his motor functions freezing up and locking while processing power was directed to the specialized centers within his CPU.

The medic suggested that in order to counter the lock up, physically stimulating the sparkling immediately following a freeze might be enough to compel his processors to redirect some of the power back to the motor functions and thus prevent the off lining that had panicked the Guardian more than the actual lockup. Ratchet told Jazz that the glitch would most likely correct itself once the sparkling had matured enough to access and handle the logic center as required; still that was likely to be vorns away.

Several more glitch incidences over the next stellar-cycle while the Op's mechs tried to figure out exactly what external stimulus was bringing them on finally led to the agreed upon conclusion that the glitch appeared when the sparkling was observing information that appeared incomprehensible or more difficult than sparkling average to understand. Rubbing the edges of the tiny chevron on the front of Prowl's helm was the quickest way to free the sparkling from a lock and thus life moved on.

**+-+-+-**

A routine convoy was being readied to take supplies to an Autobot Watch and Relief outpost located two joors travel from the outskirts of Iacon. At one time the outpost had been a way station for ground travelers in between Iacon and Uraya. Now though, with Uraya a victim of the war the only travelers were Autobots. Usually small patrol groups taking the chance to clean up, resupply, hear the most recent news and let someone else perform watch for a couple of joors, and the occasional larger platoon that would bivouac outside the walls.

Jazz and Mirage had made the trip to the Outpost IU3 as well as various others many times at the request of Roadblock, who in addition to being part of the high command and an advisor to the Prime, was in charge of organizing and leading the supply convoys. For the Op's Instructors the requests offered a means to get some semi-real work experience in on their trainees while providing a few extra bodies in the convoy guard for Roadblock. Being so close to Iacon, it was relatively safe work. Army regulars in fact considered it dull. Worse than routine late cycle patrol in Iacon, because the amenities available at the outpost were somewhat lacking for bots use to the amenities of a full and still functioning city at the end of a work shift. There had only been three attacks on such convoys in the five vorns Jazz and Mirage had been stationed in Iacon. And all three attacks had been successfully fended off by Roadblock's battle command skills. So when the order came down from on high that Jazz and Mirage were to take Prowl along on the most recent trip so that the sparkling could have a change of scenery and see there was more to life than a military establishment, Jazz had questioned Ratchet. Ratchet had had a few choice words about High Command in general and the order specifically with Jazz before reluctantly admitting that the sparkling might, and he had stressed the word might, benefit from seeing something new. Still Jazz had left the meeting with Ratchet with the feeling that the CMO's been over ruled in his objections and was agreeing because he had been ordered to. The two Guardians shrugged off the vague feelings of unease with the order as there was little they could do about it.

/\/\

Jazz was mad. He was beyond mad. Controlled fury rolled through him as he surveyed the remains of the convoy while watching the remaining mechs split off to carry out their orders. "And locate that jammer, we need comms!" was Jazz's snapped demand reminding everyone that that was a priority over the other orders he had just handed out. Then he turned to Mirage. "I'm betting that jammer is in one of the vehicles and Roadblock activated it with a wireless command. Once they've salvaged what they can and secured the wounded get going to the IU3. If you haven't cleared the jamming range in a hic or so then it's amongst whatever you took with you. Have everyone search again."

"And you?"

"I'm going to get Prowl back."

"I want him back safe and revenge on that pit spawn as much as you, but you're shoulder is a mess, you can't even transform. And the amount of damage Roadblock did to the convoy just on his own indicates this was a well staged plan. He's prepared. You should be taking this convoy and letting me pursue."

"No, if I go with the convoy too much time will be wasted while I argue with whoever attempts to prevent my return to the field. You came out with just dings and scratches. Get the convoy moving to the outpost, call for assistance as soon as you clear the jammer. I'll mark the trail, you follow when you have some reinforcements. And if it's quicker to take whatever the outpost will give you for troops, take them rather than wait for our own people out of Iacon. If we don't stop Roadblock here, it'll be vorns, if ever before we locate Prowl. Now…" Jazz trailed off as a green mech approached "What?"

"Designation's Hound. I'm a Scout. One of your wounded said the convoy commander and three others took one of your mechs. I expect you could use someone to watch your back."

Despite the situation Jazz found a bit of humor in a Scout offering to lead and back up an Op's agent. "Appreciated, but I don't think so." Jazz turned back to Mirage in a sign of dismissal to the scout.

The scout stepped back to leave and Mirage spoke up. "Hold a moment." Assured the scout now waited he turned to Jazz. "If it's quicker to make use of troops immediately available to us, then we shouldn't wait for our own people."

Jazz glared at Mirage as the blue and white mech tossed his own instructions back at him. "Fine." Jazz continued to stare at Mirage. "Hound locate me a trail."

Hound nodded to the op's mechs back and headed off.

/\/\

"I've got something" Hound said as he scanned ahead, his terrain program running at full magnification. "That way Sir."

Jazz, squatting next to the scout stared out at the surrounding vicinity then back at the scout. "you're sure?"

"Yes, that way, quarter of a hic, and there's a ridge."

Jazz looked out again. "I can see a quarter hic, there's no ridge."

"There's a ridge Sir."

"Lead on."

/\/\

"This ridge eventually joins up with higher ground here." Hound drew a curved line on the ground with a grease stick and then crossed it, "buildings here." He drew a circle near the end of the cross piece. "Not a full base, but certainly an established compound. They've been here a while. Power generators are in this building behind the main central one. Communications are in the main building. On the left is a set of three barracks; ten or twelve mech deals. Three more on the right, one for officers, one for flyers and one for heavies. Figure troop strength of eighty max; all with standard Decepticon armament, personal blasters, rifles, knives and swords. Armory and brig are most likely in the main building.

"How familiar are you with this area? Are the buildings new or something that has been converted?"

"I'm one of two scouts tagging along with the convoy to IU3 as a transfer. Apparently their previous scout team did something foolish." Jazz didn't ask for an elaboration. _Doing something foolish_ usually meant someone had made a mistake and that the doer was dead. "And beyond what I could get from the few maps I could locate in Iacon, which were considerably lacking in detail, I'm not familiar with this ground. However, these buildings look like they've been fixed up and converted for this use. Maybe a retreat of some sort before the war? Somebody drops a couple of engineers in there for two, three cycles and you have yourself a secure enough compound in less than an orn. If Roadblock is holed up in there with your mech, he's got the advantage at the moment."

"And you're sure they're in there?"

"Unless they got a flight out, yes sir. I scouted a perimeter about a quarter hic out from their own perimeter line. Residual energy markers indicate a trail in, but I found no trail coming out."

"So he's waiting for someone." Jazz turned and looked in the direction of the hidden buildings.

"Or they are already with him."

"You said only the one trail in."

"Unfortunately I cannot say one way or the other if flyers have landed for the range I scouted. I can't even guarantee a shuttle hasn't landed and departed. But I saw no flyers large enough for shuttle alt modes. And considering how elitist Decepticon flyers are, I can't imagine two willing lug a prisoner off to where ever when they have him secured in a base already."

Hound had mistakenly assumed from the beginning - and Jazz had seen no reason to correct him - that the captured mech was an op's agent. Part of that mistake could be attributed to the surviving trainees with the convoy who had smartly not mentioned all the details regarding the captive, not that they knew much about Prowl themselves. The speculation into Prowl's history had become a pastime of all op's trainees over the last five vorns. And while there were variations in the stories, the common theme had Prowl as the creation of a now dead op's mech and now a sort of mascot of the deceased's peers. And while it might seem odd that Special Op's mechs were being allowed to raise a sparkling on a military base in the middle of a war, who really was going to argue with them?

"Alright." Jazz paused "Look, you did your job, you found him for me. Getting in and out of places like this is what I do. Stay here and wait for the reinforcements. I'm going to get things ready for when Raj arrives. As long as my mech appears safe and unharmed, I'll hold off starting the party for as long as I can. Hopefully Raj will be able to get here in time and he brings enough support to just storm the place once I've retrieved my mech."

Hound looked like he wanted to argue the decision, but a barely perceptible shake of the head from Jazz had him hold back. Instead he said, "light steps and easy tracking to you Sir."

Jazz nodded as he slipped away towards the buildings. He had a sparkling to save.

/\/\

Dots as they were called, were small marble sized explosives that were encrypted to a mechs own frequencies and could be instantly on command or time detonated depending on how an agent programmed them. They stuck easily to just about anything anywhere, thus were easily placed without notice as a bot walked past any given location. All it took was a hand brushing a surface here, fingertips touching there. The charges they carried didn't cause a lot of destruction, mostly a lot of distraction. Still, no self respecting op's mech no matter how much they preferred high damage toys would be found without at least a handful of Dots stashed somewhere in his subspace. Jazz routinely carried far more than a handful of the tiny things. Now he put his collection to use. Everywhere he paused outside or in he tapped the ground, every wall he pressed against, corners caressed as he glided around, a shuttles landing gear, a ground transports cab, some fuel barrels, a door frame here, a window ledge there, a chair, a desk, a picture frame.

The computer office in the hanger as expected was linked to the main base computer so getting information on Prowl's location as well as blueprints of the base had been relatively easy; a simple hack, nothing more. That Prowl was listed as being in a room in the Medical Section, Jazz was not sure whether to be worried for his health or feel relief that he wasn't locked in the more difficult to access brig area. Now, one hall from where Prowl was he ducked into a room locking the door. A quick glance confirmed a medical or science room as the base blueprints had detailed. From here he would access the vent system for the medical section and Prowl.

He located Prowl locked in a small office off the main room. The sparkling had appeared unharmed for the most part, but then it was hard to confirm his condition as he was huddled in a tight ball on the floor in a corner, his frame shaking occasionally. As much as Jazz wanted to go to him, he realized that as long as Prowl was left alone by his captors, it would be better to give the rescue party as much time as possible to arrive and offer other things for the Decepticons to worry about. Thus he settled into wait.

/\/\

**[We're in position, go ahead and get the package. You're good any direction. We won't do anything until you're clear unless you signal.]**

**[Copy that, getting the package.]**

Jazz slipped from the vent to the ground and hacked the door lock to the office. He crossed to Prowls corner in two strides and scooped the sparkling up. "Hey Prowl, it's gonna be alright. Let's go home." He was rewarded with Prowl uncurling from his ball and cautiously chirping at him.

"Now I need ya to be real quite. Can you do that?" Jazz asked and was rewarded by cautious Chirr. "Ok here we go. Shhh now." and with that Jazz started out.

/\/\

Jazz sent the command to the dots and all across the compound a multitude of explosions went off. It was enough to startle the two Cons' in front of Jazz. Jazz backed off and slipped down a different hall as larger destructive explosions from Raj and the reinforcements rattled the building outside in counterpoint to the alarms now blaring on the inside.

The wall ahead exploded and Jazz spun around offering his back to the explosion as he hunched down tucking Prowl under him. A couple nano-clicks as debris bounced off his armor and he was up moving through the hole and into the compound yard.

Mechs were running everywhere as the yard and various items within the yard exploded. A quick sensor sweep told him every mech in site was a con, which meant Raj and what back up he'd brought had chosen to stay on the high ground surrounding the buildings. A smart advantage as Jazz was sure Raj hadn't brought anything close to the forty three mechs the computer had told Jazz were stationed here.

Jazz was off racing across the compound just another running mech amongst a crowd, Prowl held close to his side when the Autobot comm. lines came to life with voices he didn't recognize.

**[Drones incoming!]**

**[Where slag it!]**

**[West from the west!]**

**[Slag! It's Shockwave! Autobots fall back!]**

And then Mirage [**Belay that, we cannot fall back until we have what we came for.]** before connecting with Jazz on a private line. [**Location now, I'm coming for you.]** Jazz sent his coordinates and where he was planning on exiting.

**[Please tell me we have troops on the way.]**

**[Out of Iacon, but I took what I could from IU3. That's all we have at the moment.]**

**[I hope you requested some heavies. There is no way we can take on Shockwave without…]**

An explosion sent Jazz flying and he awkwardly tried to twist so that when he landed it wouldn't be on Prowl. He came down on his previously damaged shoulder joint and heard it collapse and tear. Pain signals flared from the joint as alerts flashed that the arm was no longer attached and he had taken damage to a main fuel line in his chest. On top of that his head had been jarred hard enough to scramble his processor a bit and cause his optics to fritz. He struggled to his feet only to collapse back on his knees and found himself facing Roadblock just as the yellow con snatched Prowl from his remaining arm.

Prowl dangled from the Decepticon Commanders hand by a wing screaming as the con turned his attention on Jazz. "I've put up with too much from you simpering Autobots to let you take this from me. Shockwave will reward me well for its return."

Jazz would have tried for a reply to the Con, but his blurred optics were drawn to the large purple mech approaching from behind Roadblock. His spark quivered. "No." he whispered in despair.

"Commander Roadblock well done. Give me the sparkling."

Roadblock smirked at Jazz and turned slightly lifting Prowl towards the purple mechs hand. "As you command Sir." As Roadblock released Prowls wing three things happened nearly simultaneously. The first was Prowl dropped right through Shockwaves outstretched hand. The second was Roadblock falling back as his chest suddenly exploded from several rounds of armor piercing explosive darts as they impacted it. The third was Shockwave vanishing and in his place the green mech Jazz remembered to be the Scout, Hound, stood and neatly caught Prowl before his small body could hit the ground.

Jazz had an astro-second to recognize relief and identify Mirage to the side of the scout before his systems took him off line.

/\/\

Jazz on lined in Autobase Medical. He carefully sat up and glanced over at his shoulder. Yup, all put back together. The diagnostics program he had initiated flashed its report then, all systems at eighty eight percent or better. So his chronometer was correct then when it indicated he'd been off line for two full cycles. He glanced around again but still saw no one other than the three mechs also on berths in the recovery room. Slipping off the berth he stepped out into a main work area and spotted Ratchet coming in his direction.

"Welcome back to the world of on line parts Captain."

"Captain?"

"Hmpf, yes. You and your friend apparently impressed somebody. How are your systems?

"Fine, shoulders a bit stiff. Thanks."

"You're welcome."

"Um Doc, what do you…" Jazz was interrupted as doors across the work room opened and Mirage came in with a chirping Prowl. "Never mind" he mumbled.

In a surprising first time ever move, Prowl reached out with his arms towards Jazz. Jazz smiled and took the sparkling from Mirage and held him close. Then Prowl reached up and patted Jazz's cheek with a small hand "Jass." He said with a smile.

+-+-+-

* * *


	2. Bonus Scene 1 Youngling

So this was suppose to be a one-shot but I has some scenes from different points in Holding Out For A Hero Prow's life that were not going to work in a fic about a sparkling. So If you would like to take a stroll through a few moments in Holding Out for a Hero Prowl's life, here is the first of the "Bonus Scenes."

**Title:** Holding Out For A Hero Bonus Scene #1- Youngling  
**Rating:** NC-17  
**Characters/Pairings:** Jazz, Mirage, Youngling Prowl, Flex, various others - some canon some not.  
**Warnings:**  
**Universe:** WW and G1 mix  
**Disclaimer:** _I, in no way, shape, or form, own the Transformers© franchise or the characters it contains. They belong to Has/Tak, No infringement intended. Nor do I have any claim to the songs used._

**Summary: **Just what is involved in raising a youngling who just happens to have highly sophisticated logic processors and a super tactical computer in his head?

AS with all my stories the following applies: While on Cybertron, the units of time and distance are measured in Cybertronian units, as detailed below... it's a mix of IDW, DW and BW

Astrosecond : 0.498 Earth seconds  
Nano-klik : 1 Earth second  
Klik : 1.2 Earth minutes  
Breem : 8.3 Earth minutes  
Joor : About 6.5 Earth hours  
Cycle: About 93 hours  
Orn : About 13 Earth days  
Deca-cycle : Approx. 3 weeks  
Stellar-cycle : 7.5 months  
Meta-cycle : 13 months  
Vorn : About 83 Earth years

Hic : 1 kilometer  
Vun : 1 hectometer  
Mechanometer : 1 meter  
Megamile : 1 mile

Sparkling stage 0 to 50 vorns. Earth Mental Comparison 0-10 years age.

Youngling stage 50 to 150 vorns. Earth Mental Comparison 11-22 years age.

* * *

**HOFAH - Bonus Scene # 1 - Youngling**

"Captain, just what were you thinking allowing a youngling to run any type of battle simulation let alone a level two Special Op's sim?"

Jazz stood at attention his optics focused on a section of wall beyond the left shoulder of the Primes newly appointed Third in Command. Prowl had been injured while running the simulation a joor before and had been rushed to Medical. It hadn't been an overly bad injury; painful oh yes but Jazz knew of two previous sim incidences that had resulted in worse. This time however, the CMO Ratchet had not been in Medical, was still out in the field with a majority of the Army in fact, so a junior medic as unfamiliar with Prowl's unique status as the new TIC was had done the repairs. And then promptly reported the incident to the Autobot Army's newly appointed and new to Iacon Third in Command.

That Jazz -only a _mere_ Captain - was the officer at fault as well as the highest ranked Op's bot currently in base had rankled the Third a bit. It certainly wasn't Jazz's preference to be the highest ranked Op's bot on base facing the Prime's two deca-cycle new Third in Command but his last mission had turned to slag and he'd spent a full orn in Medical being put back together after struggling to make it to the rescue point. He was still on light duty so heading off as an auxiliary to the main army body to engage the Cons had been out of the question.

"Answer, I'm waiting for an answer." Snapped the Third.

_And I'm trying to figure out what to tell you. Why didn't you read the report? The pit with it, I'll just do this the direct way._ "Sir, the youngling was in a level two simulation because he has already successfully passed all of the level ones."

"Do not frag with me Captain. I'm sure that youngling hasn't even had his first transformation yet."

"No Sir, he's probably got a good 30 vorns or so till that." _Though… he's hit every other growth marker earlier than expected, I maybe should ask him about transforming. Though again I can't imagine him not approaching me about it if his systems are ready. Or Raj or Hound or Ratchet or Flex or even the Commander._ Jazz brought his attention back to the spot beyond the Thirds left shoulder.

"…youngling is even being raised on a military base during a war by Special Op's mechs no less; I cannot begin to imagine. You don't by chance have an answer for that one do you Captain? Because if this is just sentimentality for a lost comrade then other arrangements need to be made. Iacon does have youth centers. I cannot believe Prime has allowed this. No wonder we can't make any progress against the Cons, we're busy raising younglings."

The Third paused here and Jazz decided he'd had enough. "Sir as I said, the youngling was running a Level Two Op's Sim because he's completed all the Level Ones. He _is_ limited on the amount of level twos he can run without the ability to transform. He's running Op's sims because he completed all of the level ones and twos for regular army recruits 18 vorns into his youngling stage. And he can't do regular level threes until he can transform. He is destined for Tactical, but I'm not letting him have any of those sims because I know he'll get those when he actually begins tactical training in another fifty or sixty vorns. He already carries a sharpshooter qualification from the Weapons-Master and it is common knowledge amongst the Command Staff here that he may actually achieve Mastery in both Circuit-SU and Diffusion before the end of his youngling stage, again, in fifty or sixty vorns. Finding stuff to keep Prowl entertained and engaged is a bit of a challenge. Besides the sims have a medical purpose in helping him to overcome a processor glitch. Now if you think you can do any better at entertaining him you are welcome to give it a try. I as one of his Guardians give you permission and I am sure Captain Mirage his other Guardian will give you permission as well."

The Third glared daggers "I warned you Captain. You Op's mechs are not better than the rest of us and you will be made to follow the rules. Now you can think about your attitude regarding this entire situation in the brig. You'll stand for inquiry when the rest of the Command returns. You may escort yourself to the brig. Dismissed."

Jazz smirked at the Third before turning and exiting the office. _We _are_ better than you, we carry out the dirty unmentioned part of war. _He was going to enjoy receiving the apology he knew would be coming once Prime returned because it certainly wasn't his fault that the new Third had failed to read up on his new post. There was a full document on Prowl, updated every Mega-cycle and Jazz knew Prime's new Third had been provided with it. Jazz hummed as he headed off to the brig.

/\/\

It was a very upset youngling who stormed into the Autobot Third's office. However there were only six or seven mechs familiar enough with Prowl who would have noticed the rolling emotions beneath the calm façade he presented to the world at large. To any others he appeared to be his usual apparently well mannered self, with the exception that he _had_ failed to knock before entering the office. Instead he had banged the door jamb with a fist as he passed through to insure the mech inside would be looking up. Oh, and he had not waited to be addressed but had immediately accused the occupant of the office of making a mistake.

"With all due respect Sir, you are in error. And it would be best for all of us involved if you release Captain Jazz from the brig at once."

The Autobots new Third in Command stared at the youngling in front of him in irritation at the rude behavior and the accusation." _And just how did a youngling gain access to the level the command offices were on anyway?_ "Excuse me?"

"You Sir are in error. My designation is Prowl, and if you had performed your job as expected of the Autobot Third in Command you would already have read the file on me that was given to you when you assumed your new posting. As you have assigned my Guardian to the brig for the next two cycles in response to my participation in the sim that resulted in my recent trip to Medical, the only logical conclusion I can draw is that you failed to read my file. This failure on your part has of course resulted in the error I mentioned. As of now you owe Captain Jazz an apology. You actually owe me one as well, but I'm willing to let that slide so you may have some extra time to catch up on the reading you have obviously failed to do during your first orn here. The most expedient way to correct the problem we have is for you to contact the brig and have the Captain released immediately. You can then meet with him in private and apologize before the rest of the High Command return from the engagement near the Veshar Plains." After a calculated pause so it would appear to be an afterthought Prowl added, "Unless of course you prefer to offer him a public apology?"

"You are quite a precocious thing aren't you? Who wrote that speech up?"

"Sir, with all due respect, do not talk down to me. And you yourself just used the word precocious to describe me. By definition that is one who is developed or mature, especially mentally, at an unusually early age, or showing advanced development. And while that is in fact a very apt word to use in regards to me, I wonder if you meant to use a word more along the lines of 'talented' instead. Since a talented youngling would most likely need someone to write them a speech which given time to practice they could deliver to you impressively enough. I however do not need anyone to write in advance what I wish to say. And I am confident I can debate you on that matter for however long I need to."

"Prowl you said?"

"Correct."

"Captain Jazz of Special Operations is your Guardian?

"Correct, he is one of my two official Guardians."

"Very well, I can afford to humor you this time. I'll locate the file. If what I read supports what you and he have told me I will release him and apologize. You're dismissed, but Primus help you if this is one big prank." The Third growled.

Prowl's optics dimmed in a glare. Precocious he might me, but he was still a youngling and he wasn't above back talking or in this case issuing threats he knew he could follow thru on. "No Sir, Primus help you if you don't correct this mistake in the next quarter joor."

/\/\

"So ya want ta talk about it?"

Prowl glanced at Flex as he continued to clean the rifle he had in his lap. This turn at weapons cleaning was suppose to be a punishment. Flex had turned it into a routine trip to the weapons range. That Prowl had been assigned to weapons cleaning with Flex as punishment for his strike against the Autobots new TIC was a subtle nod of approval for the move as well as a warning by the Special Op's Commander not to do it again. Prowl couldn't swear he wouldn't prank the Autobot TIC again and not be lying though.

"He deserved it. None of this would have happened if he had bothered to read the information I gathered for Prime's report. And it's not like I meant to lock up and have a wing blasted off in the sim. I mean, that's why I'm allowed to run the sims right? To overcome this glitch."

"That's one of the reasons you're allowed to run the sims yes. Just what report did the Prime assign you?"

Prowl brightened, his tone excited. "The one that essentially says 'You Are Now the TIC of the entire Autobot Army. He's some things you should know about your new post.' And I did not spend a complete cycle pestering Ratchet to make sure my file was completely up to date so the new TIC could ignore it when I included it in the report for Prime."

"So that's why you were in the Command Center so much three deca-cycles ago? I'm sorry."

"Sorry? Why?" and there was true puzzlement in Prowls tone. He'd been excited to be trusted with an adult responsibility, even if Primes Second had been monitoring him and ultimately reorganized the report. Prowl had still been the one to gather most of the information. "It was very interesting. I learned a few things I hadn't known before."

"Mmmm. Make sure you keep those things to yourself."

"Of course." Prow looked surprised that Flex thought he needed to be reminded. "I know better than to blab. You think I've learned nothing from Special Op's?"

"Oh, you've learned plenty. It's not every mech half way through his youngling stage who can hack locks, write malicious coding into computers or judge a blast radius for more than a dozen different explosive charges. Not to mention that cocky smart aft attitude."

"Am I really a cocky smart aft youngling?" Prowl asked with concern coloring his voice.

"No… you're not." Flex shook his head then smiled. "No more than any other youngling your age at any rate. You just have a lot more skills to back up the attitude when you bring it into play. We forget your age sometimes. You're going to do well in Tactical."

"I don't want to go to Tactical. I want to stay with Op's."

"Mmmm. Plenty of vorns left to figure that one out." Flex knew though, that while it had not yet been mentioned, Prowl would never be allowed an Op's field position. The sparkling glitch with his processors had not vanished as predicted. Instead it had mutated somewhat. As a sparkling the long convoluted explanation of what caused the glitch could be condensed down to the simple explanation that what the sparkling Prowl was seeing was beyond a sparklings comprehension level and caused the sparkling to freeze when he could not understand the advanced data he was receiving from his processor.

Now though, within the last vorn especially, it had been noticed that Prowl had trouble dealing with what his processors interpreted as illogical even if it should have been well within his comprehension level. This logic/illogic problem was probably a gift from ol' one eyed himself seeing as how Shockwave was very much a bot of cold logic, pure and simple. _Oh and ego, mustn't forget the giant purple ones ego._ What this meant for Prowl though was while he rarely froze or crashed anymore - though that still happened from time to time as the recent incident in the sim showed - he could lose focus on the here and now as his processors sought to find a logical meaning in whatever they had become held up on. Something as simple as a presupposition could be enough to sidetrack the youngling's processor.

Yet as an interesting side note, when it came to planning a prank, no matter how illogical a step might seem or actually be, as long as it somehow fit into the overall equation, no matter how slim the connection, Prowl never had a problem with it. The battle computer apparently overrode the logic processors if it liked the odds. Still, none of the mechs who had raised Prowl - and Flex included himself in that special group - would ever allow Prowl in the field as Op's with such a potential risk.

"There's a lot more room for advancement in the Tactical Corps than in Op's. We're all ruffians here you know. We may have raised you, but you're going to be way to proper for the likes of us." And Flex smiled at Prowl before turning back to the shoulder launcher he was cleaning. As he'd told Prowl, plenty of vorns left to figure it out. Though it wouldn't surprise Flex if Prowl already knew he had no chance with Op's. The younglings growing talent with and love of numbers probably gave Prowl the ability to run the calculations himself; and in his own head. Given the facts there was no way the odds would calculate favorably enough for Prowl's survival in the field.

They had worked in companionable silence for a few more breems when Flex chuckled quietly to himself. Flex had been given Prowl's punishment detail by the Op's Commander because the Commander knew this was exactly how Flex would handle the assignment. He'd take Prowl to the weapons range to blow off excess energy first before cleaning weapons thereby making the cleaning not so much a punishment as just another familiar routine task; enjoyable for both mechs. And of course allow Prowl the opportunity to talk about everything to a non-judgemental friend. Of course the TIC would probably glitch himself if he knew this was the assignment the Commander had handed down for the youngling's punishment. A youngling cleaning weapons was probably on the 'no, no' list of the Third. _Oh well, might be rid of him that much sooner if he crashes._

For better or worse, the veteran Op's mech had seen nothing wrong when Prowl had carried out his threat to the Army's new Third. The mech was proving to be an aft anyway and he'd only been here two deca-cycles. And the prank had been pretty mild considering what Flex and the rest of Op's knew Prowl was capable of. Breaking into the Thirds office and rigging the computer to appear as though it was permanently locked up every time it was turned on as well as gluing every movable small object in the office to the ceiling had certainly been mild. The Aft should be thankful he'd not kept Jazz in the brig for more than a joor beyond the quarter joor Prowl had allowed or his office might have been unusable for a few cycles giving the assortment of items Prowl could gain access to and the creativity the youngling could bring into play when it came to pranks.

Flex realized the future might be highly entertaining for a few mega-cycles at the very least, maybe even a full vorn if this new Third decided to carry a grudge and didn't get himself deactivated in battle. And that was the read Flex had on the mech, a grudge carrier. Flex chuckled louder earning a curious look from Prowl. Yes he'd have to see what odd's Smokescreen was willing to give on Prowl vs. the new Third-In-Command. It was going to be interesting.


	3. Bonus Scene 2 Youngling 2

**Title:** Holding Out For A Hero Bonus Scene #1- Youngling  
**Rating:** NC-17  
**Characters/Pairings:** Jazz, Mirage, Youngling Prowl, various others - some canon some not.  
**Warnings:  
Universe:** WW and G1 mix  
**Disclaimer:** _I, in no way, shape, or form, own the Transformers© franchise or the characters it contains. They belong to Has/Tak, No infringement intended. _

**Summary:** Just what is involved in raising a youngling who just happens to have highly sophisticated logic processors and a super tactical computer in his head?

* * *

**HOFAH - Bonus Scene # 2 – Youngling 2 - This takes place abouta ½ vorn after the first bonus scene**

Jazz was lounging in a chair on one side of the round conference room table. He'd gone as far as to actually put his feet up on the table as he leaned back in his chair. Just another thing to annoy the Prime's Third, whom few if any in Op's liked anyway. Jazz knew the feeling was mutual.

Maybe if the two parties had started out on better terms things would have been smoother between them. Maybe. But Jazz had his doubts. Two deca-cycles into his new post and the Third had learned that Prowl, a youngling only half way through his youngling stage was running sims. And not just any regular sim, but Op's Level Two sims. Jazz had been sent to the brig for insubordination when confronted about it and Prowl had retaliated to his Guardian's incarceration by pulling a small prank on the Third. The relationship between the Prime's Third in Command and the entire Special Operation's Group - especially including Prowl - had been a slow spiral to the Pit from that point on a half vorn ago.

Apparently for Prowl, the Pit had been reached an orn ago and the youngling had unleashed a doozy of a prank on Prime's Third last joor. In some ways Jazz was surprised the youngling had lasted this long. It was certainly a testament to the patience Prowl would one day wield as an adult. That Prowl, a youngling with the highly sophisticated processor he had, had tolerated the situation he had found himself in for half a vorn was impressive indeed. Prowl's retaliation while spectacular pointed to one fact really; that everyone tended to forget that Prowl - highly advanced processors and battle computer aside - was still at spark just a youngling.

Mirage sat near Jazz, a politely neutral expression on his face. Directly across from them were Prime himself, as well as the Prime's Second and Third. Halfway around to the right, between the two main groups was the Op's Commander and halfway around to the left was the CMO Ratchet. Three of the five Command officers were busy in a heated discussion and ignoring the two Op's Captains. Prime and his Second were letting it all go for the moment.

"You're enjoying this" Mirage whispered quietly to Jazz.

"Absolutely. I told him in the beginning that he was welcome to try entertaining Prowl himself. I just didn't think he take me up on the challenge. And if he was going to except the challenge you'd of thought he would've been more constructive about it."

Mirage interrupted in the natural pause Jazz had offered. "He probably didn't understand that keeping Prowl's processor entertained is _really a challenge_. I'm sure he saw your comment as you being sarcastic and disrespectful."

"Ok, fine. Maybe I misled him… a bit. But rote drills? I mean really, pit, can you think of a better way to give that youngling's processor too much time to think? Denying Prowl the sims and replacing them with dull drills are exactly what led to all these pranks for the past half vorn.

"Yes, but dots in his office?

"I'm surprised Prowl didn't break out the heavy artillery sooner."

Mirage hissed "were lucky he didn't break out the heavy artillery period! Twenty dots in that confined space is bad enough."

"It was only eighteen. Prowl said according to his calculations any more than 18 and the mech would have had busted audios. And he wasn't looking for damage…serious damage anyway."

"Yes, well the superficial damage is bad enough."

"Mirage, you gotta be impressed. I am. The Commander is. It took some time to re-configure eighteen dots for motion activated detonation. Dots are pressure activated when we place them. Prowl had to rig them for wireless activation as well as motion detection detonation. Not to mention he had to gain access to the section of the armory where we store them. Huh. I guess this explains why he was so well behaved this last orn. He was busy."

"You're being impressed is not going to help our situation."

"You're just upset he launched his attack before you left on your next mission.

"And the little Glitch doesn't know how lucky he is that I depart on that op as soon as this meeting is over. That his war against one of the Command Officers has put me under the scrutiny of The Prime himself does not please me."

"Relax Raj, look at Prime. He knows what's been going on. Prowl is about to have his access to the sims returned to him and his education handed back to us."


	4. Bonus Scene 3 Young Adult

**Title:** Holding Out For A Hero Bonus Scene # 3 - Young Adult

**Rating:** NC-17  
**Characters/Pairings:** Jazz, Prowl, various others - some canon some not.  
**Warnings: **Intimate acts between robots who use male pronouns to describe themselves hinted at, suggested, or discussed.  
**Universe:** WW and G1 mix  
**Disclaimer:** _I, in no way, shape, or form, own the Transformers© franchise or the characters it contains. They belong to Has/Tak. _

**Summary: **Jazz has found who he knows will be the perfect interface partner for Prowl.

* * *

**Holding Out For A Hero - Bonus Scenes – Young Adult **

"You like them." Jazz grinned at Prowl as the younger mech stared at him incredulously.

"I most certainly do not. And how do you even come to such a conclusion? All I've done is complain about how they can't not get into trouble and how command keeps dragging me into the middle of it when I don't catch and stop them first." Prowl paused then added thoughtfully. "They really need to improve their techniques. Their sloppy."

"Well not everyone can be a Professional Prank Artist before they're done with their youngling stage. Those two are just getting to the perfecting part."

"Lovely." Was Prowl's dry response.

"Now, now, don't go acting like the Stick-In-His-Aft Tactician here with me."

"Sorry, but hiding my emotions is the easiest way to survive particularly when I know I just cost a whole platoon of bots their lives including that of The Primes Third in Command." Prowl answered quietly as he looked away.

"First, you don't have to hide them from me. And second; that situation was hardly your fault. The survivors are telling everyone who'll listen that you're the reason it was only one platoon destroyed instead of two, that it was a miracle anyone got out. Command is certainly not blaming you. And in case you really had not realized this yet; Third to the Prime seems to be a high mortality rate position." Jazz paused as his mood shifted quickly from serious to sly. "And I bet if you were to ask those twins you like so much, they wouldn't blame you seeing as you managed to save their chassis."

Prowl glared. "I. Don't. Like. Them. They are a pain in the aft, and there is only so many ways to explain their pranks without admitting that I know exactly who did it and how."

"First, there's plenty of ways to explain a prank, and second, if you didn't like them, you would have named them long ago as the culprits."

"Arrrgh. How is it I'm more mature than you?" Prowl questioned

"Because you are a Tactician and I am Special Op's. And everyone knows we in Op's are the miscreants of the Army and make out own rules while the Tact Corps are the stiffs stuck on protocal."

"No, the twins are the miscreants of the army.

"So you do like them."

"No."

"They're the same age as you."

"And that is a fact I find hard to believe."

The saboteur smiled "Ya know... there's nothing wrong with a simple no commitments attached romp in a berth. I'm sure they'd be willing to oblige you."

"I know."

Jazz smirked, Prowl's optics flashed in surprise as he realized he walked into Jazz's little word trap. "That is not what I meant! They are twins; they are bonded to each other. I doubt they would be willing. Yes! I know there is nothing wrong with sharing a berth for a joor or to." Prowl blasted air through his vents in a huff.

"Just because they're bonded to each other doesn't mean they don't take others to their berth on occasion."

Prowl's response was silent glare and Jazz chuckled while raising his hands briefly in a mock surrender.

"Alright, alright. I'll leave it be."

"Thank you."

"For now. Jazz smirked.

Prowl huffed again.

"So you know about the party tonight right? You'll be there?" Jazz asked.

"I will, it's about time you gained your promotion to Commander and I don't want to miss it."

"There's still time for me to turn it down like Mirage did his."

"You won't though."

Jazz nodded in agreement. "No, I won't. Not this time anyway. Something The Commander said convinced me to take it."

"Good."

"Maybe."

"Alright, I'll see you tonight." Prowl headed for the door to Jazz's quarters, the same quarters he had grown up in. He paused at the door looking back. Jazz, once I moved out, how come you never moved your quarters back to Op's territory?"

"Lots of good memories here. And I don't mind the walk across base. And talking about quarter locations, you my youngling have become to anti-social. We should force you to take quarters outside of Op's territory."

Prowl simply nodded ignoring the semi threat. Ops would never force him out. "See ya tonight.

/\/\

"I don't get it. How the slag can a stiff fragger like Prowl always know when I am going to be setting a prank? Or how I plan to execute it?"

I think you're just getting sloppy Sides."

Sideswipe glared at his brother. "I am not getting sloppy! I swear it's like that fragger knows my plan as soon as I do."

"Well he is a Strategist and Battle Analyst and he's acknowledged as the best the Tact Corps has.

"That shouldn't matter Sunny. How many Security Directors and Unit Commanders have you and I danced around and confounded?"

It was a rhetorical question so Sunstreaker ignored it.

"So what, you like him?"

Sideswipe stared at Jazz. A quick glance at his brother showed he was mirroring the same surprise. "Just where did that come from?"

"Well you do seem to be talking about him a lot lately. Just curious."

"I talk about him because he's"

"Spoiling your fun." Jazz interrupted before the red warrior could finish his sentence. Then he continued. "Now you two do realize that Prowl has never once turned you in for a prank he caught you at before it could be executed. Nor has he ever confirmed for Command that either of you were the guilty party in any prank that you successfully pulled off without getting caught.

The twin warriors glared at Jazz. "Not helping me rant here." Said Sideswipe. "And how come you never get caught?"

"Yeah, I don't ever see you scrubbing down the wash racks."

"In my job, the consequences of getting caught tends to be painful deactivation." Jazz answered dryly.

The twins grimaced at the mild reminder that their friend was not regular army.

"But that aside," Jazz continued "Prowl has actually caught me a couple of times."

"Just how could he bust you? You rank him."

"Each time I was attached as an auxiliary to a patrol unit he was the Second of. Gotta tell ya, it was one of the proudest cycles of my life when he had to bust me for a prank that first time."

Sideswipe starred for a moment unsure how to take the strange response before responding. "That's twisted Jazz." Sunstreaker nodded in agreement.

"No more twisted than your growing interest in him every time he tears one of your pranks apart. In fact I think you complain so much because it revs your systems that you've found a mech that can keep up with you and your pranks."

"We can have a willing berth mate any cycle we want. He's no more special than any other." Sunstreaker broke in.

"Now don't go covering for your brother Sunstreaker. And I know there are plenty o' mechs eager to share your berth, but I also happen to know you two haven't taken anyone for a one joor hop in a long while, which makes me wonder who it is one of you has your optic on. And since Sides here has been talking about Prowl for nearly five slagging deca-cycles it makes a bot wonder."

Neither twin responded this time and Jazz was sure after this many deca-cycles of listening to Sideswipe complaining about Prowl that Prowl had at least caught the red twins attention enough to be interested. The problem as Jazz well knew however was with twins you had to get both interested. There was enough about Prowl, that Prowl kept hidden away from most mechs that would interest Sunstreaker. Jazz just needed to get the twins in a position to potentially learn those things.

Jazz smile grew wider, his processor racing with thoughts. "Tell you what. There's a party in Op's territory tonight. A little celebration for Prowl in fact. Come as my guests."

Twins sets of optics flashed in surprise. "Why would Op's be having a celebration for a Tactician?" questioned Sideswipe with a momentarily puzzled look.

Sunstreaker pushed Sideswipe in the shoulder to get his brother focused on the real world again while snapping an answer before Jazz could respond to Sideswipe. "It doesn't matter Sides. No thanks Jazz, but we prefer not to visit Medical anytime soon. And no mech who's not Op's crosses the line to those halls."

"Hound does all the time."

"Riiight. It's common knowledge in the ranks that Hound caught himself one of you elite Special Ops mechs. Pit the most popular rumor is their bonded. Whole different situation." Sunstreaker shook his head.

To which Sideswipe added "You wouldn't by any chance want to help solve that little question would you?"

Jazz smiled, "No I wouldn't. And back to my point, I can drop Hound from the picture fine, but how do you explain Prowl and Ratchet then?"

"Well Ratchet's easy. He's far scarier than any Special Ops mech." Sideswipe paused again puzzled. "But why do you mechs let Prowl in?

"If you want the answer, come tonight. I swear to you it'll be fine." Jazz answered in a patient tone.

Sunstreaker stood grabbing his brother. "We'll catch you later Jazz."

"Tenth joor at the Op's Main Hall."

"No." snapped Sunstreaker.

Jazz just smiled as he watched the two warriors walk off. They'd be there. Sideswipe's curiosity at the tantalizing hints he just dropped would make sure of it.

Jazz remained in his seat thinking about what he had set in motion. Mirage was sure to shake his head at Jazz's attempts at setting Prowl up, but Jazz was convinced that Prowl needed some casual interface partners. Tactical was making him far too serious, burying his emotions under that overdeveloped logic processor and battle computer.

That Sideswipe and Sunstreaker were twins was probably the initial point of interest that had caught the attention of Prowl's processors. Twins were just more complicated than ordinary bots. And even as an adult Prowl's processors needed to be entertained. It was why he enjoyed strategy games like Towers or Peril. Thus the mystery that was twins. By observation he'd probably discovered that the more bored Sideswipe became, the more likely he was to make his own entertainment. In the beginning it had probably been entertaining for Prowl to match himself against Sideswipe's pranks, many of which he had pulled and perfected during his youngling vorns here on this very base.

Sunstreaker on the other hand was a top notch combat fighter. His cold, calculating, methodical fighting style which unnerved a majority of his fellow Autobots would be very attracting to Prowl's processors. And Prowl, while being a ranged fighter now, had spent his youngling vorns mastering edged weapon skills, shooting skills, hand to hand combat and a couple of martial arts styles. Jazz had met up with Prowl one cycle after the younger mech had sparred several rounds in one of the training rooms with the yellow frontliner. Prowl had been positively glowing with excitement. A rarely seen emotion anymore in the younger mech with the burdens of being in the Tactical Corps.

So if it took allowing two outsiders into Op's territory for a night to get the wheel turning for Prowl, this was the night to do it. After all; Prowl didn't know it but Jazz wasn't the only mech receiving a promotion tonight. Prowl would be receiving his Captains rank as well. And since the mechs of Special Operations had claimed Prowl as their own vorns ago, they wanted Prowl's promotion to take place in their special common room. Thus the Commander of Tactical as well as The Prime would be allowed into the Ops Halls tonight as well.

* * *


	5. Bonus Scene 4 Promo to Commander

**Title:** Holding Out For A Hero Bonus Scenes #4

**Rating:** NC-17  
**Characters/Pairings:** Prowl, Flex, various others - some canon some not.  
**Warnings:** Intimate acts between robots who use male pronouns to describe themselves hinted at, suggested and/or discussed.  
**Universe:** WW and G1 mix  
**Disclaimer:** _I, in no way, shape, or form, own the Transformers© franchise or the characters it contains. They belong to Has/Tak. _

**Summary: **Prowl wants to know why every discussion with Ops mechs turns into a talk about his berth activities.

* * *

**HOFAH – Bonus Scene – Adult – Promotion**

"See, I told you there was a lot more room for advancement in Tactical than in Special Ops. You've made Commander far quicker than I did and even quicker than Jazz."

"That is because promotion within Ops is well and truly earned and not based on the death of officers higher than you." Prowl answered Flex's cheerfulness with his normal calm.

"Now I know the Army has a tendency to promote any available chassis due to lack of skilled bots, but seriously Prowl, you don't honestly think that is the reason you're being promoted do you?"

"Well the possibility had crossed my processor."

"Prowl, I'm sure one vorn you will be a candidate for Head of Tactical, if not in one of the command slots directly under The Prime."

"Well I'm in no rush for anything higher than Unit Commander right now."

"That may be but for right now, you've been leading your unit without a Commander for how long now? You might as well have the rank to go with it and an XO to help out."

"I already have an XO. Ricket has been acting XO just as I have been acting Commander."

"Ricket? The Mini?"

"Yes."

"Huh. Good thing those twins of yours aren't in the unit. Word is they can be…difficult on the little guys."

"They are not _my twins._ Why does everyone in Ops call them that?" irritation slipping into Prowl's tone.

"Jazz."

"Why does that not surprise me? Anyway, it matters not. I haven't seen them in two mega-cycles. And with the new rank it would be improper to have them as berth partners."

Flex huffed. "Since when has difference in rank bothered an Ops mech? Ya know, I also told you at one time that you belonged in Tactical because you were going to be far too proper for the likes of us in Ops."

"Sorry."

Flex shook his head. "Oh Prowl, I'm not criticizing, just teasing and you may not have seen them, but I bet you have kept tabs on them. Yes?"

Prowl's mask slipped as he briefly looked like a youngling caught with an ill gotten energon goodie. "I might."

"Ha. They really do entertain your processor. Jazz did alright with that set up. Have you ever thanked him?"

"Not in so many words. And while we are discussing my berth activities, why is it everyone is so interested in how often I'm facing with them?"

"Everyone? I didn't know the whole base was talking."

"I misspoke. Why are all of Ops interested in my berth activities with Sideswipe and Sunstreaker?

"Maybe because out darling protégé caught himself a set of twins?"

"Now you are teasing."

"Well, twins themselves are rare, but you did something even rarer and caught them. That alone is enough to perk our interest."

"Mmmm."

"Because we care and you are much more relaxed after spending a joor with them." Flex tried again.

"Mmmm."

"Hey, there is nothing wrong with a good, no hooks attached, interface." Flex defended.

"Yes, I hear that all the time from you and Jazz."

Flex got serious. "Prowl we raised you. We claimed you as Special Ops and we hid nothing from you. You know that for us it's all about living life to the fullest. This war has continued for so long and it has changed much over the vorns as well. You know firsthand we in Ops have a better chance of ending up on the wall than we do surviving to see the war end. So we take the joys and pleasures when we can. We are now and always have been the dark spark of the Autobots. That's why we're our own entity. It's why we make our own rules, have our own traditions. It cannot be explained to an outsider. But we in Ops look after our own, and while you may be in Tactical you will always belong to us."

"Yes I understand all of that. What I don't understand is why you and Jazz specifically are so concerned about my interfacing habits?

"Or lack thereof." Flex muttered

"Flex."

"Prowl."

"Flex, please, there has to be something I am missing."

"And it's really confusing those over the top processors of yours right? Look Prowl, it's simple. Ops is about life and death. If you're not alive, then you're in the matrix. And you Prowl, specifically, are far too serious for your own health and those twins help with that. We can see it. Have you ever noticed that you carry yourself differently after you've been with them? More relaxed. More at ease. You're alive after being with them and not withered and dying under the burdens of wondering which bots are going to die this cycle because of your choices."

"Be that as it may, it is hardly proper for a Unit Commander to be interfacing with bots from the ranks."

"At this point they're not even in your unit. Why would your relationship be a problem?"

"Because it is not proper.

Flex sighed. "Did I mention that you are far too proper for your own good?"

* * *


	6. Bonus Scene 5 Compass Rites

**Title:** Holding Out For A Hero Bonus Scenes #5

**Rating:** NC-17  
**Characters/Pairings:** Prowl, Hound, Sideswipe, SUnstreaker, various others - some canon some not.  
**Warnings: **Intimate acts between robots who use male pronouns to describe themselves hinted at, suggested, or discussed. Robots purposely getting way way drunk.  
**Universe:** WW and G1 mix  
**Disclaimer:** _I, in no way, shape, or form, own the Transformers© franchise or the characters it contains. They belong to Has/Tak._

**Summary: **Prowl has known the death of friends and comrades in this war before. Growing up in the care of Special Ops mechs insured it. But this is the first time it has hit so very close to the spark.

* * *

**Bonus Scenes #5 - The Compass Rites**

Prowl on lined to a throbbing ache throughout every one of his systems. Everything ached. Chassis, processors, optics, audios, vocalizer, servos-wait he'd covered those with chassis, fuel tanks. Oh yeah, couldn't miss those. Why was he feeling this way? He checked his chronometer. Fourteen joors to a cycle and it was already into the seventh joor of the cycle? That could not be right. And he ached all over. Wait, he'd covered that hadn't he? Then the shift of a body next to his had him on lining his optics, jerking upwards and at the flash of yellow armor on one side of him he scrambled over another body with red armor on his other side to get off the berth. As his feet hit the floor the room spun as optics lost focus and he swayed, forcing him to grab the edge of the berth as motor function reacted poorly before both stabilized somewhat.

"Prowl?" The question was soft, concerned, but Prowl didn't register it.

What the Slag was wrong with him? He had never allowed himself to drink so much as to become cratered while drinking. Overcharged yes, but not completely cratered. And certainly never, _never_, to the point of energon poisoning which it felt as though his systems might currently be working their way back from.

He forced his CPU towards the degraded files of the past few joors. _The Compass Rites._ He pushed away from the berth and took two steps before he sank to his knees.

"Prowl? The call a little louder this time, concern very evident.

A second voice responded to the first "Sides let him be. Remember what Mirage said. It might take a few kliks for everything to settle."

His entire frame shivered as his processor sorted through the memory files. _Flex. The Commander. The Compass Rites._

*~*~*~ [Approximately 1½-2 cycles previous]*~*~*~

Hound accepted the datapad from the unit's communications officer and turned it on. There were two files. Hound chose one and opened it, then frowned in puzzlement. What he was seeing was encrypted.

"You're sure this is for me?"

"As sure as I can be. The headers all indicated it's from Special Op's, but it was addressed for you. If there's a mistake it's not on my end. Looked like the files were encrypted, but I don't have Op's ciphers. Still, the security protocols all checked out. Can you not open them?"

"Hound smiled with a light laugh. "And why would a Scout know Op's encryption ciphers?"

The Communications mech fidgeted looking uncomfortable and trying to decide if he should say what Hound knew the mech wanted to. Hound chose to save the communications mech the embarrassment. "Just because I have an understanding with one of them does not mean they are giving me the encryptions for the entire department." Hound thanked the mech as he turned and left but his processor was flying. He did have knowledge of one very special set of Op's ciphers, but it was nothing he would ever admit to any mech. As soon as he was alone he plugged into the datapad. Astroseconds later he opened the first file.

Three simple lines appeared. The first read 'Compass Rites.' The Second had two mechs names. 'Flex and Impact.' The third listed a cycle and time.

Hound sighed. Not good news. He opened the second file. This time a single line appeared – 'He should bring a couple of bodyguards.' Hound puzzled over that for a moment then nodded to himself, deleted the second file and went to find his Commander.

/\/\

Prowl stared wordlessly at the three line message. Ignoring Hound he called to the other mech present. "Corporal, have Ricket report immediately. Then he looked up at Hound as the Corporal nodded and quickly left the ruined building Prowl was currently using as his units headquarters. "I assume you are already carrying full kit so you and I will leave as soon as I inform Ricket he's taking the Command for the next few cycles.

Ricket, a green with black minibot and Prowl's Second arrived and Prowl waved him further into the room. "Myself and Hound will be leaving for Iacon immediately. We have something to attend to during the next cycle. If we are not back, or you have received no word from us in five cycles, contact Iacon for further instructions. Questions?"

Ricket, well used to his Commanders ways didn't expect to gain any knowledge from his query, but he still asked. "I don't suppose you'll tell me what's going on if I ask?"

"It's personal business."

He sighed in his own head. "Then no. I have no questions Sir. Safe travel."

Hound spoke up then. "Sir, shouldn't we take a couple of guards as a safety precaution. We don't want to make it too easy for the Con's if we encounter any on the way. And an Autobot Unit Commander would make a nice prize and you doubly so." Hound paused as if thinking over the unit's warrior contingent then continued. "Sideswipe and Sunstreaker perhaps? Those two are easily worth double their number in a fight."

Prowl flicked and optic at Hound for the suggestion. He highly suspected Hound was using guards as an excuse for Prowl to bring those two warriors in particular. Prowl's past personal history with those two and the overall situation at hand strongly suggested Hound had received more than the simple three line message he had given Prowl. The suggestion however was also a valid caution and with the suddenly perky expression from Ricket, Prowl knew his second thought guards were a wonderful idea. Perhaps not so much for his Commander's safety in this instance as for the fact that he wouldn't personally have to deal with the twin warriors for five Primus-be-blessed cycles.

Prowl had stared at Hound long enough to make the Scout nervous and confuse Ricket who could sense something else was going on besides what the simple suggested precaution indicated. Prowl made his decision, for better or worse, however it might turn out. "Very well. Hound round them up and meet me at the edge of camp, we leave in a breem."

/\/\

The foursome had bivouacked for a joor to allow a quick cube of energon and almost three quarters of a joor recharge, while they each rotated through a one-quarter joor watch. As the four drank the energon, Sideswipe questioned the sudden trip to Iacon. Prowl had chosen not to answer, but Hound had offered some information.

"We are heading back for a Special Operations… ceremony. That's probably the best way to describe it to outsiders. They call it The Compass Rites. I don't know why, so don't ask. Truth is I don't think there's a mech alive still who could tell you why it's named that. Anyway, when a veteran operative is killed while on a mission in the line of duty, the surviving operatives hold what they call The Compass Rites. Beyond a small bit at the beginning it's hard to describe what exactly happens. You just need to be there."

"And all operatives participate in this ceremony?"

Prowl cycled air harshly through his vents. "Hardly. Only those who have earned the right to the Compass Room itself."

"And you and Hound have earned this right?"

"Yes." Prowl answered, a hard edged tone to his voice. Then Prowl stood up. "Recharge, I'll take first watch." And he moved off into the shadows.

"Hound?" Sideswipe questioned softly.

"This will not be the first Compass Rites either myself or Prowl have attended. But it will be Prowl's first time as a Primary participant to it. I believe that Jazz and Mirage intend to offer you two an invitation to attend. If that is truly the case, then you will be only the second outsiders ever offered such an honor that I know of."

"Ok, and that means?"

"That's up to Jazz or Mirage to explain."

"Not that. What did you mean by Primary Participant?"

Hound wavered. Just how much did he have the right to reveal about this Special Ops activity? It had been vorns after hooking up with Mirage that he had even heard the term let alone participated. Now though he'd taken the Rites role as Confidante to Mirage several times which allowed him a little more understanding. "Primaries are usually mechs who were closest to the deceased. Longtime teammates, longtime friends, co-creations even, if they both went into Op's. This time, the deceased are a mech named Flex and the Special Op's Commander himself. Jazz and Mirage became Prowl's official guardians shortly after his creation, and Impactor, the Ops Commander was close as well. Flex though, in some ways may have been even closer to Prowl than his two guardians. There are something's you can talk to a friend about that you would never talk with a creator or guardian about. Now, Prowl's been attending these rites as a Confidante participant since he reached his adulthood but this time, he'll be a Primary; he needs to be a Primary. If the rites work as intended, he'll be better for it next cycle. The way he locks his emotions away, he more so than many mechs needs this. And he's probably long overdue."

The twins wanted to know more but Hound shook his head. It wasn't his place or right to explain the world of Special Op's. Even after vorns of being with Mirage he didn't fully understand it himself, nor did he want to. Still he knew enough to know there would be enough mechs willing to act as Prowl's Confidant for this, so this move by Mirage and Jazz if his hunch was right was a bit surprising. Hound was sure that Jazz and Mirage were hoping these two warriors - outsiders with no ties to Ops other than they had at one time been casual berth partners with Prowl – would take the Confidant role for Prowl. And that role still had to be explained to them. Yes it did tell Hound a lot; he hoped it was the right decision. "Time to recharge, our turns at watch will come all too soon.

/\/\

Even with Hound's top speed being significantly slower than Prowl's or the twin's top speed, the four made Iacon and Autobase with almost three joors to spare before the time indicated in the message.

As the four transformed just inside the base Prowl looked at the twin warriors, his normal carefully controlled neutral expression on his face. "You have the remainder of this cycle and all of next cycle off. We'll meet here at first joor the cycle after to return. I'll ping you with your quarters assignment when I get it." Prowl paused then and the features on his face slipped briefly from neutral to strained before he continued. "Sideswipe, Sunstreaker. I am warning you right now. I will have absolutely no tolerance for any misstep you two might even be considering while we are here. Do not test me this time." And with a quick nod at Hound, Prowl turned and headed further into the base.

The twins watched him go then turned to Hound. "So, when do we meet with Jazz and Mirage and get this whatever it is figured out?" questioned Sideswipe.

"Yeah, because those last five joors have got to be the most uncomfortable joors I can remember spending with Prowl in just about forever."

"You're complaining about getting one and a half cycles leave?"

"Quit dancing Hound. You know or suspect something more than you've told us. It's all in your attitude towards us. It's changed since this trip began."

Hound sighed. "You're here because as I told you, it was requested. I suspect it was requested because in the past you two and Prowl have shared a berth."

And the twins immediately went on the defensive. "Whoa, whoa, whoa. The last time we shared anything was before he became a Commander."

"And even if we had spent time with him since becoming Commander we certainly have not since we were transferred to his unit."

Hound raised his hands in a placating gesture. "Easy, I know very well Prowl's keeping your relationship…"

"We just said we don't have that kind of relationship with him!" Sunstreaker interrupted with a snapping tone."

Sideswipe looked at his brother, then in a calmer tone to Hound "Look, don't get us wrong, we'd love to still have it, but we don't. So whatever Jazz or Mirage think we've done to him, we didn't.

And the easy going Hound snapped back. They didn't have time for this and this shouldn't be his job to explain. Not to mention the Rites would begin in under three joors and this needed to be decided by then. "Oh for the slagging love of Primus, you are not in trouble. Now enough of this or I'll pull rank on you." Hound paused, then in a calmer tone continued. "Look, please just come with me to see Mirage before you go jumping to conclusions. Then after you hear him out, you can head off to your own devices if you so choose."

"Why not Jazz?"

"Because I suspect that is who Prowl has gone to see."

/\/\

Sideswipe and Sunstreaker winced as they once again turned their audios down a notch. The music continued its slow but steady increase into the pit slagging primus painful ranges. The joor had started out solemnly enough. Nearly sixty Special Operations operatives plus Hound and Prowl and themselves in the same common room where they had seen Jazz's promotion to Commander and Prowl's promotion to Captain that one night all those vorns ago. The front wall, which had appeared plain the last time the twins had seen it, glowed this evening with a large elegantly painted non-electronical compass in its center. All around the compass, spreading out in all directions along the wall names were painted. Each name was called out loud one by one through the entire list and a chant had been sung. Then Prowl stepped to the wall and in his neat, precise writing, added the glyphs for Flex's name to the wall. Jazz followed and added Impactor's.

Then the music and high grade had started. As the joor progressed the music had gotten louder, harder, harsher. It had a desperate frenzied quality to it. For Sideswipe and Sunstreaker it had long ago reached a point as to be unnerving, knocking at their processors, and rattling deep within their systems, its tones shaking the frequency of their very sparks. The drinking had progressed in the same way, faster, harder, hasher. It was easy to tell the Primary's as Mirage and Hound had described them. They were the mechs who like Jazz, Mirage and Prowl were drinking heavily of the strangely green hued energon and moving in a seeming daze as that energon attacked their systems.

The twins had tucked themselves away in a back corner slowly sipping cubes of midgrade provided by Hound as they heeded his warning and Mirage's politely suggested order to stay away from the high grade this night. And while plenty of mechs were drinking more normal colored high-grade, it appeared that they and Hound were the only mechs present staying away from the heavy and heavier stuff this night. The twins shared a thought between them wondering how this wild music effected over energized systems. It was certainly harsh on their normal systems. Prowl had steadfastly ignored them the entire night; not that they had expected anything different after talking with Mirage. Finally Hound appeared in front of their relieved optics and beckoned for them to follow.

The trio didn't speak until they were in the Op's Halls residence section and outside Prowl's quarters. Even then the heavy, hard, harsh music filled the air, rattled the walls and grated on their systems, attempting to rip into their very sparks.

"You two are okay with this?"

"It's fine."

"You don't have to do this. Like Mirage said, there's plenty of Op's mechs here who can do this."

"Would you let someone else be there for Mirage?"

"My relationship with Mirage is not quite the same as yours and Prowls. That aside though, if I couldn't be here for Mirage this night, and there have been times when I couldn't be here, it eases my spark knowing that Ops takes care of their own, and Prowl has belonged to Ops since his very first vorns."

"We'll all be fine."

/\/\

It was another half joor before Prowl returned to his quarters. Or the ghost that resembled Prowl. Sideswipe was pretty sure he'd never seen a mech so cratered that it bordered along the edges of energon poisoning; and certainly never Prowl. Yet he knew that several other mechs at the ceremony were likely in no better shape than Prowl at the moment, Prowls Guardians included in that group. All of them had been drinking steadily from the green tinted cubes of energon. That Prowl'd even found his quarters was impressing Sideswipe.

The twin warriors watched with a cautious wariness their one time - and not nearly enough if they had been allowed a say in it - occasional berth mate. Mirage, in explaining the immediate post condition of participants of The Compass Rites had told the twins it was impossible to tell how a mech would react from the specialized energon and the music that would be used all night and that Primaries needed to be handled carefully. Some interfaced, some screamed and fought and broke things, some fell into shaking sobbing heaps until recharge claimed them, some created amazing works in Art or Music. How a Primary would react was not necessarily the same each time. He'd apologized politely and profusely for being so forward and requiring such an answer on such short notice, Jazz had felt Prowl would benefit most from their presence as his Confidant rather than an op mechs. Prowl kept his emotions locked away tight. The twin warriors had at one time breached those barriers and The Compass Rites were all about emotion. Even as he was asking them to take the role, Mirage repeatedly told them they could decline. There were plenty of mechs who could fill the role he insisted. This was not the best way to introduce and outsider to Special Op's. They had repeatedly refused the option.

Now Sideswipe moved cautiously towards Prowl, offering the black and white mech a careful hug. "How are you doing?"

Prowl looked at Sideswipe with no recognition in his optics as they flickered briefly lost to the beat that raced through his systems. He opened his mouth to speak. Then instead he shook his head and suddenly he was clinging to the red warrior his frame shaking with sobs. To Sideswipe Prowl's frame felt overly hot and his systems hummed at a far higher level than normal. "I…I… Prowl shook his head and whined as he rolled his head in denial and pushed away only to step back into the chest of Sunstreaker who had stepped up behind and now wrapped his own arms around the white and black mech before looking over to his brother.

Sideswipe stepped forward. "Prowl you gotta let this out somehow or it will destroy you. You especially who lock everything away." Prowl shook his head trying to deny the rush of emotions, the hate, the fear, the helplessness, the loss, the need for revenge, joys of friendship and love, abhorrence, the shock as positive and negative emotions swirled within him. Emotions brought forth by the energon and music this night. He leaned back into Sunstreaker, turning his head from the red warrior in front of him.

"Prowl, you've helped others through this, let us help you." Sideswipe whispered as he stepped closer.

Another whine and Prowl gave in and reached for Sideswipe.

*~*~*~

Prowl came to awareness out of his memory files to find himself on his knees in his quarters in the Special Op's Hall's of the Autobase in Iacon. He looked over his shoulder at the two warriors sitting on his berth watching him with concern in their optics and tension in their frames.

He'd known from the moment Hound suggested the two as guards for the trip here why the scout had done it. As Unit Commander he could have refused guards period, or chosen others from his unit. Yet something somewhere deep in his processor had agreed with the choice. What though did it say about the twin warriors that they would allow themselves to be used like this; thrust into such a role as Confidant for The Compass Rites when they – as outsiders – would have had no understanding of what that truly entailed?

Yet, as Prowl looked within himself he realized that he was at peace. They had obviously succeeded in their role as Confidant. What had occurred last night between the three of them would allow him to remain grounded. It had offered focus and provided relief and a renewed since of direction. This was a war. Friends, mates, comrades would continue to die. He would continue to face harsh decisions in the field that would continue to cost bots their lives and the only way to stay the course was to except the loss and push through to the day peace would find them all.

Prowl shifted to look more fully at the twins. "Thank you."

* * *

+-+-+-

So what are The Compass Rites? They are a huge Special Ops drunk fest apparently. Seriously though, there's more to it than that and I hope that came across in the ficlit a bit. The Rites have three parts. The first is the ceremonial reading of the names on the wall and the adding of the newly dead. The second is the music and the drinking. The third is whatever takes place in private quarters after.

Primary: These would be the mechs who are going to get completely cratered. They're usually the ones who have been in Ops the longest or the ones who were closest to the deceased. All Primaries have a Confidante for the duration.

Confidant: These are mechs who partner up with a primary. Their job, aside from making sure the Primary doesn't lose it and kill themselves or someone else is to be whatever the Primary needs. As indicated/hinted at in the story this can be a huge range of things; from someone to provide an audio or a pair of arms to huddle in to an interface partner to…whatever. As indicated by the title, what happens between Confidante and Primary stays between only this pair unless the Primary chooses to ever speak on it.

That special energon the twins mentioned: Primaries drink it. Yeah, there's probably some "additives."


	7. Bonus Scene 6 A Battle

**Title:** Holding Out For A Hero Bonus Scenes #6  
**Rating:** NC-17  
**Characters/Pairings:** Sideswipe, various others - some canon some not.  
**Warnings: **  
**Universe:** WW and G1 mix  
**Disclaimer:** _I, in no way, shape, or form, own the Transformers© franchise or the characters it contains. They belong to Has/Tak.  
_**Summary: **Over the vorns Sideswipe and Sunstreaker have come to suspect there are only two mechs that maybe, just maybe, affect Prowl on a level that the Unit Commander might and could disregard logic for in a battle situation in order to save. Yet when the unit finds itself in circumstances that offer the opportunity for the answer to be revealed the twins may find Prowl really is as convoluted as he seems at times and the answer still unclear.

* * *

Notes:  
BFFM = Better Frag'n Find Me  
{bond speaking}

* * *

**HOFAH - Bonus Scenes # 6 – Misc. Battle Scene**

"According to Iacon, an Ops mech who has been undercover for the past three mega-cycles is exiting with valuable information. He is making his way to a retrieval point at this very moment. His information is considered valuable enough that we will be heading to that retrieval point ourselves in order to recover and escort the operative to Iacon. As of his final contact the operative believed his cover to still be intact and his escape at minimal risk. Those of you with us on our previous two meet and retrieve missions know the operative's status may have changed by now. Whether it has or not has no bearing on the fact that we are the only unit being sent in. You may or may not be happy to learn that Artillery is being moved into position to cover the area if needed. One final note, please pay attention as this is new. This mission has been re-classified by Iacon as Gamma level; that means an at all costs mission." Ricket paused to let the new status register and everyone's attention to focus again. Prowl's Officers were too disciplined to outwardly show consternation at that new status, even the two junior lieutenants so the pause was all that he allowed. "Questions?" he finished. Ricket didn't expect any as this was the final Officers briefing before imminent move out; but it was still prudent to ask especially with the two still green junior's. And apparently prudence was well placed this time.

"Sir?" One of Prowl's two junior Lieutenants, "Who knows of the classification?"

"This mission's classification is for Officers only." Ricket responded.

"So the Sergeants are not to be informed?" This time from the Senior Lieutenant.

Prowl shifted his stance drawing attention to him. "You may inform only you're Senior Sergeants and only if you find yourself in a situation that warrants it. As always, I leave what warrants it at your discretion." Prowl spared a general encompassing glance at his officers. "Echo has the new command comm. encryptions for this mission" Prowl nodded at his Communications Officer. "Pick them up as you leave. We move out in three breems, dismissed.

/\/\

"Echo!" Ricket leaned in touching his helm to the communication officers. It was the only way to be heard over the Decepticon artillery and the Autobot artillery answering it. "Have you had any word at all on the Commander?"

"No Sir!"

Ricket was getting a lot of "no Sir's" and "I don't knows" ever since the unit had gotten themselves pinned down by small arms and artillery fire while attempting to seize the retrieval point from the Con's. By chance or bad luck they had arrived to find two Decepticon units swarming the area. So much activity in this part of no mech land screamed that the operative's departure had been blown at some point during his exit. Now two joors in to the engagement and counting, neither side seemed inclined to move from their entrenched positions. Despite the Cons superior numbers their Officers, just like Prowl, seemed content to let their artillery pound their opposites along with the occasional pot shots with personal weapons.

And Prowl. He couldn't remember every being more frustrated at his difficult to work for Commander than he was at the moment. Prowl had initially held the unit back from the area under cover and sent Hound to scout the situation further. Upon the Scouts return Prowl had listened to his report on the situation and had been on the verge of issuing pullback orders; deeming the mission a lost cause when Echo had picked up that blasted BFFM signal. Ricket had been standing next to the scout when Echo had played the signal for Prowl. The hitch in Hound's systems and the sharp look he directed at the Commander was locked in Ricket's processor because it was at that point when Prowl's battle plans had changed. Ricket wasn't sure what in the signal he and Echo had missed but whatever it was had certainly affected Hound and Prowl. His Commander, usually cold, calm and collected in any circumstance and not known for acting rashly had heard the signal and immediately requested an initial artillery barrage and then set the entire unit against the two Con ones. The plans Prowl had issued to the lieutenants had been as sound as any first contact plans from Prowl ever were, but as usual were only good until the first shots had been fired. Unfortunately a few breems after the engagement had begun Prowl had vanished with the scout and one of the two twin warriors. Communications and sensors had been jammed just after that and Echo had had no luck countering the Cons jamming yet.

"Slag this, we need to …"

They both ducked as an artillery round impacted with a _whomph_ against the other side of the crater wall they were currently using for shelter and rattled both of their chassis. "I'm beginning to think they knew we were coming." Ricket yelled as the debris settled.

"Starting to look that way Sir."

"Alright, find Sideswipe. His brother is wherever the Commander is. I want him to contact Sunstreaker and relay to the Commander it's time to return. If he can't do that, I want him to locate the Commander's team and drag their afts back here. Were pulling back if we can."

"This is a Gamma mission, we can't pull back."

"Frag that, we can to pull back. At all cost is only applicable if we still have a package to retrieve. This has been going on for two entire joors and the Commander has been missing for more than two thirds of that time. Iacon may not be pleased with our failure. But if we've lost the Commander as well…" Ricket shook his head before pressing back to Echo's helm "So, find Sideswipe and pass on my orders."

Echo nodded and took off. Two breems later he located the Senior Sergeant where he was settled in a bomb crater with what was left of a fire team and the Unit's Med Tech working on what was left of Sideswipe's Lieutenant. Echo waited while Sideswipe launched a shoulder rocket at an unseen target before moving over and pressing his helm against Sideswipe's. "Sergeant, Sunstreaker is somewhere ahead of our position. The Commander and Hound are with him. Captain wants you to contact your brother and have him bring the Commander back if he's still alive."

Sideswipe leaned back and frowned at the comm. officer. He and his brother placed shields around their bond when they went into battle so as not to affect each other. He could get a general sense of his brother's direction, but talking would be impossible unless Sunny unshielded as well and Echo knew this already. He leaned in "Why would they be out in front?"

"Commander was getting ready to withdraw when I picked up an Ops BFFM. It was right after that that we engaged the Cons."

Sideswipe's optics flashed in surprise. "Who's the mech?"

"What?"

Sideswipe leaned in pressing his helm to Echo's. "I said, who's the signal from?"

"How the frag would I know that?"

"You're a communications mech right? Look I don't know how they do it, but Ops can always tell whose signal is whose. Obviously the Commander can as well. If he can without special equipment, then you certainly must be able to."

Echo leaned away from Sideswipe and replayed the signal carefully examining it and started in surprise. He touched helms again. "You're right, there's a subtle tone woven into the signal itself. Most probably wouldn't know it was there if you weren't looking for it. But it still doesn't tell me who sent the signal. Maybe the Commander has a code key?"

"It doesn't matter anyway." Sideswipe shrugged as he pulled away. There were only two mechs that Sideswipe and his brother suspected Prowl might and could disregard logic for in order to save. And logic certainly did not dictate the unit commander just up and taking off on his own with a thrown together fire team.

/\/\

Sacrificing safety for speed, Sideswipe was running in the general direction he felt his brother. Echo hadn't any idea where they were or how far ahead of the unit they might be nor whether they had gone to ground or even if they were alive. Sideswipe knew Sunny at least was still alive because the bond said so.

Sideswipe heard the whistle and hit the ground near a questionably sound structure of something, trying to make himself flat. The round hit to close for comfort and when the blast wave hit the structure behind him it shuttered and began to fall at Sideswipe. He attempted to scramble clear only to lose his footing as the ground gave way beneath him and he slid into a collapsed hole half his height as the mostly destroyed structure collapsed on and around him.

"Slag!" He wiggled trying to free his arms and hands to dig out when the rubble began shifting and strong hands were pulling him out onto his feet.

"You okay?"

Sideswipe looked into the optic band of Groundpounder before yelling back his answer. "Yeah, thanks mech, glad you were here."

"Where you headed?"

"Commander has a team up front somewhere seeking that pick-up we were sent here for."

"We're frontline here Sideswipe. Nasty business beyond, and with comm.'s down I don't think we're gonna be allowed to engage in hand to hand this time."

"Not likely, Echo said Captain wants to pullback, but he won't do so without the Commander."

"Nothing's working. How are you locating them?"

"Sunny's in that team."

Groundpounder nodded. "I already lost my lieutenant, plus an entire fire team, can't report it without the comm. though and it's gonna be slag having to train another lieutenant."

"Ah, training 'ems not so bad."

"Hmpf. Easy for you to say, you're the one with the Senior Lieutenant."

"Mine wasn't looking to good when I left." Sideswipe shrugged "Besides, since when do you need an Officer to hold the line anyway? Junior's just get in the way. You always seem to do just fine holding the line." Keep the ranks in position but I don't think the Con's are too eager to come visit at the moment."

"You just keep your head down out there." Groundpounder yelled, jabbing a finger at Sideswipe as more artillery sailed by overhead.

"Of course." Sideswipe smiled, then took off again.

More than one third of a hic further and Sideswipe was sliding into another crater to Sunstreaker's side. Across the crater Prowl was re-loading his rocket launchers while Hound worked to patch up a slender mech that looked a lot like Mirage, except this mech was green and yellow and sporting a Decepticon insignia.

Sideswipe hollered across the crater at Prowl in the momentary lull in artillery from both sides. "Captain would really like for you to return to the command crater Sir. He thinks we should pull back."

Prowl nodded once. "We have what we came for. We'll start back as soon as Hound gets Mirage patched enough."

Sideswipe glanced again at the green and yellow mech as realization set in. Of course that was Mirage. Then he nudged his brother nodding and Sunstreaker dropped his shields.

{Figured there were only two mechs he'd ignore logic for. And there is no way you can tell me being this far past our own line with a single fire team is logical.}

Sunstreaker shook his head. {I don't know Sides. Raj has some pretty important Intel apparently.}

{How important is pretty important?}

{At all cost important. But Prowl said he figured it might spare the unit some by taking a small team to sneak up rather than engaging in hand to hand.}

{Yeah? Well we still gotta get back.}

* * *


	8. Bonus Scene 7 Ark Crew

**Title:** Holding Out For A Hero Bonus Scenes #7  
**Rating:** NC-17  
**Characters/Pairings:** Jazz, Prowl various others - some canon some not.  
**Warnings: **  
**Universe:** WW and G1 mix  
**Disclaimer:** _I, in no way, shape, or form, own the Transformers© franchise or the characters it contains. They belong to Has/Tak.  
_**Summary: **Prowl talks with his Guardian about the selection of crew for the Ark and lets slip that he's taken a look at the war with his battle computer.

* * *

**HOFAH - Bonus Scenes # 7 – Shortly before Ark Launch**

"So Prime is leaving his Fourth in charge of all Autobot forces?"

"Yes, Ultra Magnus should do well enough."

"And that logic center of yours agrees that it should be Prime himself leading this search for energy?"

Prowl fidgeted under his Guardian's knowing question. "No it doesn't. From the direct chain of command myself or Ultra Magnus should be the ones to lead this mission."

"You skipped Ironhide."

"You know as well as I that he does fine as Third here with Prime, but he would never leave Prime. After myself and Ultra Magnus you, Trailbreaker or Perceptor are the next best choices from the Command circle." Prowl shook his head. "It is not logical that the Head of the Autobots would abandon our planet for a questionable unknown length of time leaving the command of our forces to his Fourth. That I am being reassigned from Second of the Army to Second for this expedition makes little sense either. This move will leave Ultra Magnus with two new Sub-Commanders for the entire Army. And Ultra Magnus himself is the newest of Prime's sub-Commanders."

"So your attitude has nothing to do with what might be perceived as a demotion?"

"You know me better than that." Prowl frowned. "But a bot doesn't need my processors to see that logic says this move potentially leaves the Autobots weak while the Officers left behind get used to their new positions and learn how each other functions. It is not after all just the Army in general that is seeing Command re-structuring but the Special Divisions as well. Ratchet has already agreed to go and Prime has asked Trailbreaker to join the crew. He agreed as long as it wasn't as a Command Officer. And as you know Prime wants you as Third. If you also accept, then both Tactical and Op's will find themselves with new Command Officers."

"So Trailbreaker is joining. Who will he turn Command of Tactical over to?"

"He intends to turn over Command to his Second."

"And will his Third move up as well then?

"No, we have discussed that, but Overdrive is comfortable where he is. Ever since getting over his ego complex he has been a solid Third for the Corps. We are looking at options for a Second."

"We?"

"Though it's been vorns since I gave up Command of Tactical for the position of Primes Second, Trailbreaker and I still consult frequently. Tactical is a more open door unit than Ops is."

"Hmmm."

"So what about you and Ops? Do you plan on handing over Command and come or will you just assign a team to the unit?"

That's the problem Prowl. Prime has no idea how long this hop abroad may take. One vorn, two vorns, five vorns, ten. Without knowing that the variables are a bit more complicated."

"Hmpf. I am well aware of that. Logic says Prime is not organizing any of this correctly. We must accept that at spark Optimus is not a war leader. If we were at peace, he would be a great leader. But as it is, he hobbles his mechs."

Jazz's optics glowed behind his visor and he sat up a bit straighter surprised to hear criticism coming from Prowl of all mechs. "What is that about?"

Prowl sighed looking away. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean for that…It's just… I…"

"Prowl?" When Jazz received no response he reached out, grabbed Prowl's chin and forced him to look back up. He studied the tactician for a moment and then he repeated his inquiry softly. "Prowl?"

Prowl cycled his air systems in a sigh. "Do you know I've finally taken a real look at this whole war?" Prowl shook free of Jazz. "It seems like a glaring error on my part that I did not do so before, especially having been Head of Tactical for vorns. And how many more vorns have I been Second and failed to do this? And I mean _really_ take a look. You interested in what I discovered? What my processors and battle computer sims are telling me? In simple terms even? Prime has the strength to defeat Megatron. He has had several opportunities to deliver the final blow in fact. We Autobots in general have had numerous chances in various battles over the vorns to eliminate nearly all of the Decepticon High Command, yet we are held back." Prowl paused, then, frustration present in his voice he continued. "Prime doesn't have the ball bearings to do what needs to be done. He keeps letting Megatron go. It hobbles us. This war is not going to end with Megatron on-lining one cycle and saying: Oh I'm sorry, this was all a huge mistake."

"Prowl, you know it's not the Autobot way to kill."

Prowl glared at Jazz and the Saboteur could read disbelief and disgust in Prowls face before the tactician continued. "We kill all the time. Is it so much better to kill hundreds of lowly soldiers in battle than to take out a few High Officers? Is it better to kill the soldiers on a base who have been assigned to guard whatever it is you or any other Ops mech is sent in to destroy just because their officers told them to guard it? Is it fair to send battle units on 'at all costs missions,' sacrificing mechs for an objective that in truth will not assist us in ending this war? How is any of that helping end the war? Decepticon High Command cares nothing for their rank and file. And at this point cutting off the head is not the same as ripping out the spark. Maybe back in the beginning they would have been one and the same, but not after this many vorns."

"Prowl…"

Prowl shook his head turning away. "No Jazz, I'm sorry, I should not have said all that."

Jazz sighed as Prowl put an end to the conversation as he let his emotionless mask drop in to place and switched back to the original topic. "Hound received and offer to the unit. The twins as well."

"Those three come from your direct Unit Prowl and their receiving offers does not surprise me. Primus, half your unit should be receiving offers."

"Perhaps, but Ricket should have been given his own unit back when he was promoted to Commander instead of choosing to stay as Second to me. I'm turning it over to him."

"I'm surprised Ricket is not getting an invite to go. For a mini he's superb"

"I would have liked him, but no, Ultra Magnus will need good commanders and good units and mine is certainly that. Besides, he would have to take a demotion in rank for the unit. And he's not as easy going as Trailbreaker."

Jazz smiled, "Trailbreaker was probably delighted to give up the rank of Commander."

"Quite. Considering he wouldn't except anything higher than a lieutenants rank for this mission. If we would have allowed him to drop all rank he'd have been delighted. He earned his Commanders rank and took head of Tactical because of circumstances, but he never wanted it.

Jazz nodded his head. "Anyone else I know?"

"Quite a few. I already mentioned Ratchet, but Wheeljack, Red Alert, Perceptor also."

"Lot's to think on Prowl."

"I know, but don't think too long, Prime wants answers from his chosen officers and you're the only holdout. The Ark is nearly ready to launch. And either way you still need to choose the Op's team who will go."

"Well if Hound is going then I'll have to send Mirage."

"Yes, but that still leaves one slot in the team if you come and two if you don't."

"I'll have the answers to you before the third joor of next cycle Prowl.

"Thank you."

* * *

A/N on Bonus Scene 7 here: It has been mentioned that my referencing Perceptor as part of the Ark's crew is a G1 continuity error. To some extent yes this is correct since he is one of the many bots who "mysteriously" appear as part of the expanded crew. Sorta like all the "generic Decepticon seekers who all of a sudden disappear. Regarding the Autobots who all of a sudden are present in season two, the popular explanation seen in fan fic is the crew arrived from Cybertron later by _insert your favorite method here_. My favorite method, actually seen a fair amount in TF fan fic is they were indeed part of the original crew, just not on the bridge of the Ark. This usually places them in various other parts of the ship and it takes the original 19 some time to dig them out/gain access to those parts of the ship/revive them from transport stasis etc. I lean towards this theory as it makes more sense to me when trying to make sense of a 25-year-old children's cartoon whose creators didn't worry too much about continuity in the first place; this was just one big toy commercial to them after all.

Further justification for my leaning towards the explanation I use is to take a look at the ships Nemesis and Ark. The size suggests the ability for more crew. The Nemesis specs give her a full crew compliment of 200 Cybertronians, though she was "designed to maintain maximum combat effectiveness with a minimal crew." (So what exactly is minimal?) If we assume the Ark to be smaller than Nemesis, but larger than a "shuttle" -and she must be larger than a shuttle since it was shown in Beast Wars season 3 that she had carried her own shuttle- we can assume she could host a fairly large crew compliment. (So what is fairly large?) I fully believe though that neither ship launched with a minimum nor maximum crew. So there, in a nut shell you have my view on crew and where the new bots in season 2 appeared from.

So that's why Prowl tells Jazz Perceptor is going in the chapter. Besides, of all 19 season one Autobots, not all of them were on the bridge either. :)


	9. Bonus Scene 8 Earth Alt Mode

**Title:** Holding Out For A Hero Bonus Scene # 8 - Earth

**Rating:** NC-17  
**Characters/Pairings:** Jazz, Prowl, Sideswipe, Sunstreaker, various others - some canon some not.  
**Warnings: **Robots who use male pronouns to describe themselves, discussing intimate acts with each other.  
**Universe:** WW and G1 mix  
**Disclaimer:** _I, in no way, shape, or form, own the Transformers© franchise or the characters it contains. They belong to Has/Tak, No infringement intended. Nor do I have any claim to the songs used._

**Summary: **Jazz takes reminding Prowl that regardless of rank he needs to take care of himself to the extreme.

* * *

**Holding Out For A Hero - Bonus Scenes # 8 – Earth - Alt mode**

Jazz stepped into the Ark's rec room and looked around. He was looking for the twins. They were one of the night shift patrols, but that didn't start till 8 o'clock local time. Right now it was about four in the afternoon by this planets local time zone. And since the Autobots had adopted the local time system after allying with the humans; this meant their shift schedules were also adapted into three tiny eight of this-planets-hours shifts. This put the Ark right in the middle of second shift also called the 'Day' shift with four hours still too go. Ah, there they were.

"So have you two had a chance yet to check out the reformat Teletran gave Prowl?"

Sideswipe and Sunstreaker both looked at Jazz as he slid into a seat at the table they were occupying in the Ark's rec room. Then they glanced around to see who was nearby. Grapple, Hoist and Wheeljack were the only other occupants, but on the other side of the room so it was fairly safe to have this discussion here. "From a far."

"From a far." Jazz repeated with sarcastic disappointing disbelief in his tone.

"Jazz, you know we'd love an up close encounter with Prowl's modifications, we really really would." Began Sideswipe

"Especially those door wings." Interrupted Sunstreaker.

Sideswipe nodded in agreement. "Yes definitely, but the slagger has made no indication that he wants that."

"And we're not gonna go fragging him off. It'll probably earn us another trip to the brig."

Jazz smiled. "That's exactly what he needs."

"What?"

"Huh?"

"I said that's what he needs. A good fragging. Mind you, I'm not surprised that he's being so dense, he's never been good at taking care of himself in this regards. Remember, he doesn't do well separating want vs. need. I'll apparently have to see what can be done about this. Who's the third for your patrol team tonight?"

"Smokey."

Jazz smiled "Oh yeah, this might work out nicely. Hey I'll catch you later." Jazz downed the energon he'd brought to the table and headed out. _Oh yeah guys, were all gonna be playing with door wings tonight if this works out._

/\/\

"Hey Prowl," Jazz called as he entered the Second's Office. "Smokescreen's in medical with a door wing problem and Ratchet says he'll be unavailable for his shift. Something about a sensor. Prime says you're to take the patrol."

Prowl couldn't hide the surprise that flashed across his features at the announcement. "Prime says I am to take it?"

"Yeah, something about you needing to get out and see the local scenery."

"That hardly sounds like something Prime would say."

"Well I might have given the order a little local flourish." Jazz grinned

"Very well then." Prowl checked who Smokescreen's patrol partners were for the night and grimaced when his processor produced the answer."

"Jazz caught the grimace. "Anything wrong?"

"No."

Jazz cocked his head at the response.

"Really, nothing's wrong. I was just looking who my patrol partners would be."

"Oh? And who are they? Can't be any worse than my last patrol. Mirage of course was fine, but Huffer? How could you assign me Huffer?"

"Would you prefer to have Gears?"

"Huh, thanks I'll pass. So you didn't answer, who're your partners?"

"Sideswipe and Sunstreaker."

Jazz's smile bloomed on his face. "That's great! I mean you haven't spent any time with them since this whole search for energy disaster began and we woke up here. Take and hour out of your patrol and frag yourselves senseless."

"Prowl arched and optic ridge. "Interfacing on duty is not allowed. And even if we were to do such a thing, fragging ourselves senseless is not exactly the thing to do away from the safety of the Ark."

Jazz tipped his head back looking at the ceiling. "Prooowwwl." Before looking back at Prowl. "You need some personal time. I know a patrol shift is not the best way to go about getting it, but you three have the speed to compensate for any playing around and no one will be the wiser about your relationship."

"I am not going to be breaking the rules by taking personal time while on patrol. Nor will I compromise the Autobots, myself or my position by getting involved in a relationship with someone who is not an officer."

"You're already in a relationship with them. Granted its one of the loosest and most strangely defined relationships I have ever come across, all you three have ever done is have some fun in each other's berths whenever your paths cross. But it is something. And neither they nor you have shared your berths with anyone else since hooking up all those vorns ago. So why won't you spend some time with them now? We're going to be stuck here for the foreseeable future. Might as well relax a bit like the rest of the crew."

"I do not wish to open the door to questions about favoritism."

"Okay. First, you, me, and Ratchet know about your interactions with them. Seeing as how Ratchet and Wheeljack have an understanding, I assume he knows as well and I would be surprised if in all his time at Autobase Red Alert never found out, so that makes five of the eight of Primes Command Officers. Then, of the regular officers, Mirage, Hound and Trailbreaker for sure know. Smokescreen probably does as well. And amongst the ranks, besides the twins of course, I'm sure Inferno knows because of Red and Bumblebee of course knows because he's Ops. And none of those I've listed are going to accuse you of favoritism."

"Those are not the ones I would be concerned about."

"Prowl, in the very short time we've been awake you've had the twins in the brig enough times to lay questions of favoritism to rest. You and the twins have never been blatant about what you do. It has always been on the quiet. Now it helps that their twins, so them turning down offers to share a berth is not all that surprising to anyone, everyone just assumes it's the twin bond; but you need to spend some time with them.

Prowl wavered, the chink in his armor that Jazz had managed flashed across his features and Jazz moved to press the his advantage.

"Look it may not be an understanding like Mirage and Hound, but you three have something. Take a break and get reacquainted."

"Thank you I'll consider it."

"Prowler."

"Jazz."

"I mean it Prowl, do it, don't make me pullout the heavy artillery."

Prowl glared at Jazz. "Fine."

"Swear it Prowl."

"You're making me swear to interface with them in?" Prowl questioned in a why am I not surprised tone.

"Tonight, I'm making you swear to do it durring tonight's patrol."

"I already told you it's breaking the rules."

"Prowl. You used to break the rules all the time."

"When I was a youngling!" Prowl exclaimed.

Jazz continued with his patient, I might as well be talking to a child tone "I want you to swear to me you will take an hour out of your patrol tonight for personal time with the twins."

"Fine."

"No, I want you to swear it."

Prowl glared at Jazz.

"There are worse things than being forced to take a voluntary hour of personal time in the middle of a patrol shift Prowl."

"I thought you weren't bringing out the artillery?

Jazz glared "Swear. It." he emphasized.

"Fine. I swear it."

Jazz shook his head and continued the glare. "No, I mean really swear it."

Prowl huffed. "I Prowl, now and forever a warrior of Special Ops, by my spark do swear it."

"Thanks" Jazz said cheerfully as he spun around and slipped out the door with a wave.

/\/\

It was a little past midnight local planet time when Prowl turned off of the empty two lane highway he and the twins were traveling onto a dirt road. To both twins it appeared unmarked with only tall trees lining either side. Luckily it also appeared well maintained.

**:Jazz said there is an area we need to check out up here.:** Prowl answered to the wordless inquiry Sideswipe sent over the private comm.

**:I've never seen a human maintained dirt road in this good of condition. This is as good as the one we maintain to the Ark.:**

**:It's a logging road. Humans who cut trees for various products maintain this so that their big trucks can get the trees out of the mountains.:**

What a relief thought Sideswipe and Sunstreaker offered the same thought through their bond. While they had been awake on this organic planet for a little over six of its months, not even a stellar-cycle in Cybertronian time, it had taken far less time than that for just about everyone to miss their mag plates and realize that some earth alt modes were not designed for all-terrain. On Cybertron a completely metal planet where the majority of the population had mag plates, ground clearance had not been a huge issue. Here on this planet everyone had had to get used to wheels and tires. Wheels and tires meant you had to consider ground clearance. Ground clearance for the twins meant a measly 4.9 inches in human measurements. It was incredibly low to the ground and meant the smallest dip in the road could cause them to bottom out their undercarriages at the speeds they liked to travel and in many cases had to travel. Though Sunstreaker and Sideswipe counted themselves lucky since both Jazz and Mirage as racing models had even less clearance than that. Prowl the lucky mech had a comparatively liberating 6.3 inches. Though he'd lost the oh-so-sleek styling of his Cybertronian alt mode to get it. Still Teletran had compensated with a rather regal root mode both twins agreed.

The new wings on his back seemed to have a hundred times the range of motion as his previous ones. And while the previous ones had been highly sensitive to touch due to the multitude of sensors located in them, they had had little mobility to them. The new ones were larger, broader and constantly flickering this way and that with Prowls moods. The twins couldn't wait to get their hands on them.

* * *

If you found a lot of errors, or more than usual, sorry, but this and Bonus #7 are my least favorite of the collecion of HOFAH scraps I'm posting as Bonus scenes and I have not spent much time working with them or cleaning them up. I shall be thrilled if someone likes them as they are.


	10. Bonus Scene 9 Compass Rites 2

**Title:** Holding Out For A Hero Bonus Scene # 9 – Compass Rites 2

**Rating:** NC-17  
**Characters/Pairings:** Jazz, Mirage, various others - some canon some not.  
**Warnings: **The death of a major character acknowledged  
**Universe:** WW and G1 mix  
**Disclaimer:** _I, in no way, shape, or form, own the Transformers© franchise or the characters it contains. They belong to Has/Tak, No infringement intended. Nor do I have any claim to the songs used._

**Summary: **His processors and battle computer destined him for the Autobot Tactical Corps, but Prowl has always belonged to Special Ops.

* * *

**A/N:** Look, I know a lot of readers wanted to see a lot more of the twins and Prowl's relationship, however it has been pointed out a couple of times during the various bonus scenes that the three of them are pretty hush hush about their activities together. Apparently this author is included in that hush hush stuff. I have spent a week trying to get an extra scene down on paper, but the three are not cooperating. At all. So, after a week of no cooperation on the parts of the characters I realize we aren't going to see more. Everyone is just going to have to use their imaginations.

Now, here is the final bonus scene I did have written for this. It's short, but hopefully you find it appropriate. Before you read though, I would like to mention that I really hate the events of the 1986 movie. I certainly didn't understand "why" at the time; (big stupid fragging toy commercial). Even so, in most of my writing that goes to that point, I acknowledge it happened.

* * *

**HOFAH – Bonus Scenes # 9 – The Compass Rites 2 - The ****Timeframe is just after the events of the 1986 G1 movie**

__

_Fate has bespoken,_

_one of our circle, _

_we call to our fellows,_

_gone on before. _

_This night we rally,_

_we vouch for his honor, _

_we vouch for his courage, _

_we vouch for his spark; it was that of a hero. _

_We call to our fellows, _

_as eternal night falls, _

_and the Matrix calls,_

_rally, remember his name._

The singing chant ended and Jazz looked at Mirage in silent offer one more time. The slender blue and white nodded at Jazz from where he huddled within the green arms of his bulkier mate. Jazz nodded back; then slowly he stepped up to the wall and painted the glyphs of Prowl's name.

"Prowl" chorused the assembled mechs.

~*~* The End *~*~

* * *

Thank you to everyone who has left comments. They have been appreciated.


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